Living in Tomorrow
by Ishi-Kanekami
Summary: Harry wanted change, he really did. But did he actually want this? Obviously he's never heard the phrase "Be careful what you wish for"  AU, Slash, intelligent fluff, yes it does exist, raining fish, psychic Harry, Muggle studies Draco and maybe mpreg.
1. Birthday wishes

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the content of J.K Rowling's books, but I do own all of my OC's, the plot of this fanfiction, some spells, and the possibility of Malfoy dancing around the room of requirement to the song "Around the World (La la la la)" by ATC. I also do not own any of the song lyrics present in this fiction.

**Full Summary: **It's the start of a new year at Hogwarts, and all Harry wants is a fresh start, was it really that much to ask? But this definitely wasn't how he expected things to turn out. His head full of dreams about unidentifiable figures, mysterious gifts, and raining fish, his world feels like it's been turned upside down, and for some reason all he can seem to think about is someone that he's hated for the past five years. All he wanted was a change in his life, but it seems he got much more than he bargained for. (This story talks place during Harry's sixth year)

**Theme song: "**Drops of Jupiter" by Train

**Pairings: **HP/DM and a little HP/OC (Draco in disguise), maybe some HG/RW (?)

**Warnings:** This fanfiction contains boyXboy action, if you don't like it, why are you even here?

**Additional Warnings:** Um…The Harry/Draco love in this is slow at first, and at the beginning they start out as enemies then become friends. There aren't any one-shot sex scenes that pop out of the blue in this, but eventually there might be some explicit stuff (don't lose hope! This is still a work in progress!) And maybe some mpreg (maybe!).

**A/N: **Hi there! ^_^ This is my first ever Draco/Harry pairing (now that I think about it, it's my first completed fanfic…) so I'm really excited, and just for fun I made it a songfic. I've tried to keep the story line as close as possible to the original series (so I guess it's Cannon…?) but with a few modifications; for instance, I changed the course of the story so that professor Slughorn never exists, and I'm trying to sway Harry away from the whole emo personality with the "Oh I hate my life! Why does no one care! Hey you! Stop looking at me funny or I'll hex you!" attitude. And also I'm giving him a new hobbie, because with him playing quidditch, learning defence against the dark arts, doing his homework and planning how he's going to defeat Voldemort, what else does he have to fill his time with, that isn't depressing? I'll fill you in on Draco's new hobbie later as well, but I have a feeling that people are going to say it's too OOC for him, but hey, when in doubt, write something more entertaining. And if you don't agree with me, and you think I should have stuck closer to the original, we'd never get Draco and Harry even remotely close to each other, let alone loving it up. So Nya! _

This is a songfic, so the theme song for this chapter is **"Put Your Records On" by ****Corinne Bailey Rae**.

On with the story!

**Living in Tomorrow**

**Chapter 1**

**Birthday wishes**

The sun shone, almost blindingly, down onto the midsummer landscape that was southern England. It glared off puddles, windows, and the occasional pair of sunglasses that paraded their way down the streets in the warm afternoon sun. The quiet atmosphere was very peaceful, and made one think of lazy afternoons filled with lounging around on deck chairs, ginger cats stretching and going to sleep in your lap, and tall glasses of iced pumpkin juice slowly perspiring in the mild heat, that is, if you were a wizard.

In this case, that particular wizard was Harry James Potter. Now, most of you may think that the title "Wizard" is exciting enough in itself without having to add something like "Saviour" or "Hero" to it, but for this wizard, this was a given, and most of the time he wished he was none of the above. Also, sometimes on days like this, he wished he wasn't even a wizard. He sighed and rolled over onto his stomach, knocking the book he'd been reading onto the floor. He didn't notice however, and just buried his face deeper into his pillow, and groaned out of pure boredom. _Can't they just let it go?_ He thought in exasperation.

He'd been locked in his bedroom all morning, and for the better part of a week. The reason he had been punished, was because he had _accidentally_ tripped Dudley over and broken his nose as he'd been passing by the local park, as he often did.

What really happened was that Dudley had been picking on these two little girls, one of about the age of six, the other slightly older, maybe nine or ten, and had nicked their skipping ropes, being a total arse as usual.

Harry usually knew to keep clear of his cousin when he was like this, not out of fear – no, he had not been afraid of Dudley in years – but just that the plain fact was, that even if he intervened, whoever Dudley's victim might be, would most likely be less than grateful for being saved by that "odd, delinquent, Potter", who in the opinion of many of the neighbourhood children and their families, was a terrible influence and a danger to those he associated with.

But this time something felt different, almost wrong; Dudley was alone, he didn't have his usual posse of idiots backing him up, and also, even though Dudley was a git, he wasn't the kind to rough up a couple of girls, young as they may be.

"Go on, jump." Dudley said as he leered at the smaller of the girls, who was starting to cry. He was holding the ropes about a foot too high for the girl to reach. Red in the face, and shaking with rage, her sister yelled "Give them back! Give them back right now!"

Harry paused by the park gate wanting to keep out of sight. There was something odd about how this girl was acting. The anger was to be expected, but she almost looked like she was concentrating very, very hard on something, almost like she was willing Dudley to spontaneously combust.

Dudley laughed cruelly "Why don't you make me you freak! I know you can!" Harry frowned at this. "Freak" wasn't something that Dudley often used when insulting people. In fact, he had never heard him call anyone that, apart from himself. What did Dudley mean? "I know you can…" _Can what?_ Harry thought, confused.

"Just give them back! Stop making my sister cry, you brute!"

The girl was almost screaming at him, and her little sister was sobbing on the ground, having fallen over after trying and failing, to grab the ropes from Dudley's large hands, as he'd lowered them slightly in a teasing manner before quickly raising them even higher into the air.

Dudley was guffawing now, barely able to get his next words out. "Ha-Ha-Ha, not until you do something, y-you l-little f-freak!"

Harry had been about to come out from behind the tree where he'd been hiding, readying himself for a fight, when he froze. Something was happening to the ropes in Dudley's hands. They were glowing, and beginning to move slowly, almost like a…

"Snake!" the little girl screamed.

Two long carpet pythons were now twisting and writhing in Dudley's fingers, hissing angrily at having been folded into unnatural loops. Dudley yelped and dropped them, and swore loudly when one snapped at the lacers of his trainers. "Shit! You little freak! You're going to pay for that!" he advanced on the taller of the two girls, about to hit her, when Harry, coming out of his shock, decided it was about time he did something.

"Oi!"

Dudley turned around and his great piggy face twisted into a mixed expression of fury and scorn.

"Oh, look who it is! Has the head freak come to defend his puny 'freakettes'?"

"Shut up Dudley! What kind of a git picks on a couple a kids, girls for that matter?"

"Shut it! They're not normal! They're weirdos just like you!"

Dudley was about to reach for the girls again, but one of the snakes chose that exact moment to rise up, hissing threateningly at him, like it was protecting the girls from further harm.

"_Come any clos-s-s-er and you will pay…"_ It hissed angrily. Harry doubted that anyone else could understand this, but the snake's demeanour couldn't have been plainer.

"Get rid of them freak!" Dudley demanded. For a brief moment harry wondered which one of them Dudley was talking to –in Dudley's opinion they were all freaks– but that thought left him as quickly as it had come.

Harry looked over to the elder girl, her face wasn't shocked as it should have been, especially after seeing two ordinary jump-ropes transform into large, probably deadly, snakes, but looked mildly surprised more than anything else. Then it hit him.

…_They…they're witches…_ Harry was having trouble processing this; he had seen these two playing in the park before, once or twice accompanied by their corporate, suit wearing mother, and he was certain, that she defiantly wasn't a witch.

The other snake had begun to rap itself around Dudley's foot, intent on stopping him from escaping.

"Stop it! Stop it you stupid, evil, little bi-" he would have continued but something made him falter.

Dudley had frozen –literally– he was stock still, not even blinking, and it was only once he keeled over and his nose made a sickening crack against the concrete, that Harry realised he had been stunned.

"E–Emily…!" The older sister squealed.

'Emily' had stopped crying, but her face was distraught and her eyes wide in apparent shock and confusion as she stared at Dudley as if he were dead. Her sister ran to her side and scooped her up into a hug while backing away slightly from the unconscious form that was Dudley, stroking her hair as soothingly as she could, in spite of the fact she too looked like she was petrified.

Harry stared. This was something he would have never expected. He wouldn't even have dared hallucinating about this sort of thing. _Maybe I'm going mad…It wouldn't have been the first time…_

The girls took no notice of Harry as he continued to stare, thinking hard.

_Oh get a grip, this isn't that odd, they're probably muggle born, just…say something…_

"…um…"

_Oh that sounds __**real**__ intelligent genius…_

Harry took a step forward, but as soon as he did, the snakes reared and hissed threateningly, ready to bite if they had to.

He backed up; rethinking what he should do; He locked eyes with the closest snake, an idea swimming out from the depths of his brain.

"_Let me pass-s-s…"_ he hissed softly.

The pythons seemed to blink in surprise, and then obliged, much to the shock of the two girls who were huddled on the ground in front of him.

"Hello…?"

The girl called Emily buried he face into her sister's shoulder; apparently the shy one.

"Go away." The elder spat at him.

"No."

"Go away!" she yelled.

Taken aback, harry paused, then, making a decision, slowly kneeled down on the ground beside them.

"Why do you want me to leave?"

"Just leave us alone! Our mum told us to stay away from you! You're probably just as bad as him!"

She pointed dramatically at Dudley, waving one arm around like this might indicate just how bad she thought he really was.

Ignoring this, Harry continued. "You know it isn't very nice to make judgments about people before you get to know them. You might have some idea about how that feels, I'm guessing?"

She frowned at him, but said nothing.

"Now, would you please tell me your name?"

She considered this. Looking down at her sister, she said. "You first !"

"I thought your mother told you to stay away from me; doesn't that mean you already know who I am?"

"All I know is that you're his cousin," she pointed at Dudley again "and that your last name is Potter. That doesn't count as knowing who you are."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

_Smart answer._

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter. Your turn."

"I'm Elliot. Elliot Jones."

She smirked. Harry felt a little relieved to see it, and smiled back.

"And this, as I take it, must be Emily." As he said this, Emily poked her face out from Elliot's shoulder and peered curiously at him.

"Hello there." Harry said politely, hoping not to scare her again.

She ducked her face back down again, nuzzling into Elliot's long, very curly bronze hair, completely obscuring herself from view.

"She's shy." Elliot said offhandedly, stroking Emily's hair somewhat absently, as if thinking about something mildly interesting. Hairy watched this, waiting for her to continue, but she didn't…at least, not until Harry said, "Uh…I'm very impressed with you snake friends, usually you have to be very experienced to do that kind of spell."

All of a sudden she snapped her face around to look at him and said in a disbelieving voice "Spell?"

"Uh…" Harry said again, his mind blank as to what to say.

"You said _spell_ didn't you?" She sounded almost demanding. When Harry said nothing, she glared at him.

"Oh…well, I suppose you don't know yet…How old are you?"

"I'm ten," She sounded quite proud of herself "but I'll be eleven in August."

_Makes sense, that's around the time when my powers were getting stronger…I guess it wouldn't be hurting anyone to tell her, she'll be getting the letter soon anyway._ Harry thought, frowning slightly, weighing his options.

"I'm six and a half!" Said a now excited Emily, who had forgotten about being shy, and was now waving her hands around in the air, almost as if she was going 'Pick me! Pick me!'

As she did this, a small bird that was in the tree above them, started making loud squawking noise and started to swell, so much so it fell out of the tree.

"Oh dear…I don't think sparrows are supposed to look like that…or sound like a pack of elephants for that matter…" Harry was having a hard time keeping the grin off his face; the sparrow's body, which was now green, was now roughly the size of a very fat pigeon's, and was honking with displeasure as it tried to flap its tiny wings, failing to get off the ground.

"Emily!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! It's the birds fault!"

"It is not the bird fault! Now turn it back or I'll tell Mum!"

"No-o-o! Don't be mean! Don't tell Mum! Don't tell Mum!"

"SQUAWK!"

Harry couldn't help himself, he burst out laughing, it was just so ridiculous watching these two fights, and the bird was getting louder, flapping its wings like a chicken and still getting nowhere.

"Stop laughing!" Elliot yelled, but she too was starting to laugh, and was red in the face again.

After a while, and once the bird had deflated and flown away, and the snakes had changed back, the group were panting and grinning to one another, and they probably would have stayed that way, had Dudley not groaned.

"Damn…"

The spell had broken, just like the all the other's. Harry tensed as Dudley stirred, then clumsily rose to his feet, dried blood stuck all over his face.

"Ugh…Where…?" Dudley mumbled.

This surprised Harry. Stunning spells didn't usually make one forget things, but then again, it might not have been just any old stunning spell…

"Oi. You. Why am I here?" Dudley asked Harry stupidly. _Definitely not a normal one…What should I say?_

Harry looked from the girls then back to Dudley and said "Um…You came to beat me up…?"

Dudley frowned at this, but was slowly starting to nod; beating Harry up seemed like a normal thing he might do. That must have been the reason he was in the park. Dudley then noticed there was blood on his face.

"Why am I covered in blood?"

_Wow, and I thought Dudley was stupid before…must be some sort of combo spell…Hmm, 'Stupefy' is one…his memories gone, so that could be 'Obliviate'…'Confudus' maybe?"_

"Who are you?" Dudley said to one of the girls, who looked a little confused that he could not remember them.

_Yep, definitely 'Confudus'. _

Dudley started looking around the park a bit dazed. He spotted the ropes lying near his foot, and his face slowly started to dawn in comprehension.

_Better think fast, I don't think this spell will last forever…_

"Dud, just now you came into the park, and you saw me. You thought you would have a bit of a laugh, so you came over and tried to start something. I tripped you over, and you broke your nose, and you've been out for the past two minutes. When we get home you will tell Aunt Petunia that I was the one who started it, and you will complain a lot, you're good at that. And you will not remember ever seeing these two girls here, nor will you remember they have powers or where they live. Understand?"

Dudley nodded slowly, his eyes glazed over and sporting a vacant expression.

"Okay…go?" Harry said uncertainly, and surprisingly that's exactly what he did; Dudley turned, and began walking up the street, completely oblivious to the stairs he was receiving from neighbours, who would have been blind not to notice his broken nose, and the fresh waves of blood that were pooling under it, just above his top lip.

Harry and the girls watched him go for a while, but then Harry's attention was pulled back to the current situation when he felt a gentle but persistent tugging at his right sleave.

"Hey! How did you do that?" Emily was looking up at him in a look of awe, her big brown eyes sparkling with fascination and wonder. Harry couldn't help but smile, she just was so adorable.

"I actually don't know, but I think know what and who made it happen." He said, bending down and taking Emily's hand.

"What is it? Tell me! Tell me!" she was giggling and jumping up and down, hardly containing herself.

Harry poked a finger lightly into her chest and said "Magic."

When he said this she squealed and went "Magic! Magic! Magic! I have magic!"

Emily ran over to a tree and picked up a stick, making Harry and Elliot laughed when she started waving it around like a wand and making little whizzing noises, like young muggle boys do when they pretend they're playing with laser guns.

She ran back and asked "Does that mean we're fairies?"

Harry all of a sudden had a rather disturbing mental image of Professor Snape in a pink tutu and little fairy wings.

He grinned reluctantly and said "No, we're not fairies, you two are witches, and I'm a wizard. Look." He rummaged in his pocket and brought out a Chocolate Frog he'd been saving. He opened the packet and grabbed the frog by the leg before it escaped.

"It's alive!" Emily squealed, pointing, as Harry dangled it in front of her by its foot. Elliot could only blink.

"And look at this." Harry handed the Chocolate Frog card to Elliot, who took it cautiously.

She jumped when she saw the old wizard in the picture yawn, then waved merrily at her.

"That's Dumbledore; he's the headmaster of my school. And he's one of the most powerful wizards in the world." Harry knew he must sound like an idiot; he was talking just like a young mother telling her child a fairytale, but somehow he didn't care. It was kind of fun.

Elliot turned the card over, reading it carefully.

"Why are you showing us this?" She said, looking up at him with an almost sad expression on her face.

Harry wondered why this might be, but answered her none the less.

He sat down gently on a pile of dead leaves, crossing his legs, considering. "Well, when you are very young, witches and wizards, like you, don't have powers straight away. They start to get them at different times." He indicated Emily as an example.

"Most of the time, wizarding children know that they are going to get their powers sooner or later. But in your case you're a special kind of witches. You're something we call muggle born."

"What's a muggle?" Emily asked.

"They are people without powers. They don't know anything about the wizarding world or that magic is real."

"So…Mum is a muggle?" She asked, looking at her sister, confused.

"Mum's never showed any powers, we would know. She hates magic." Elliot frowned, her voice very bitter as she said this.

Harry could relate; the Dursleys had always hated him, that was to be expected, but they might not have hated him so much if he wasn't a wizard. He looked over to Emily, she looked sad too, and it suddenly dawned on him.

"You haven't told you mother have you."

Elliot shook her head gloomily, taking Emily's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "She wouldn't like us anymore…" Emily mumbled, she sounded like she was going to cry.

Harry didn't know what to say. It was an entirely different story if your family loved you and they hated magic, instead of if they knew you had magic and hated you, like the Dursleys did him. It would only hurt that much more to keep it a secret from them, just to stop them from saying they didn't love you anymore. That was just too much for someone so young to go through.

He felt torn. He knew that if he told them, that in less than a month, Elliot would be going to a school for wizards, it would be like giving her a death sentence, but it would only be ten times worse for her if her mother found out when that day came, instead of now. He could almost not bear the thought of what would happen when Emily would have to tell her Mum she would be going as well, in just a few years time.

"I wish Daddy were here…" Emily sniffed, hugging Elliot.

"Where is he?" Harry asked.

"He died, when we were small." Elliot said quietly.

"Do you think Daddy was a wizard?" Emily asked.

"Maybe. He really liked cats…"

"…I'm not sure that counts, but if he knew Mrs Figg, then he might have been…" Harry mused, absently.

"Aunty Figgy?" Emily asked.

"…Aunty…what…?"

"You know our Aunty Figg?" Elliot sounded stunned.

"Um…Yeah, she used to babysit me when I was about your sister's age." Harry said weakly; this was getting too much for him to take; He was starting to get paranoid that everybody he met had to at least have one magical relative in their family that he knew. But, at least this gave him a way of telling them without hurting them too much.

It was getting late, so making up an excuse, that he thought it better to get the coming argument with his aunt and uncle over and done with, Harry casually suggested that they go visit their Aunty _soon_, preferably _that_ afternoon, and ask some _quite_ important questions. They argued, but agreed and, promising that they wouldn't tell anyone what Harry had told them, left quickly down the street in the general direction of Magnolia Crescent's far end.

"Bye bye!" Emily waved madly at Harry, all the while being pulled along persistently, her little hand clasped in Elliot's as she marched her down the street, in an almost mothering manner.

Harry noticed that they seemed to wave their hands around a lot, almost manically; this was probably something they would have to work on if they continued to make strange things happen because of their untrained magic. And sure enough, as Emily continued to wave, they pasted by a couple of street lights, which suddenly all turned on.

Any normal person would have just assumed they had turned on because it was starting to get dark, but the next moment, they had all started to flash red and blue like the lights from a night club. This seemed to annoy Elliot extremely, because she stopped and started to scold Emily with a rather heated expression on her face. And then, a few seconds later, the bulbs of the street lights cracked and went out.

_Definitely needs practice…or maybe anger management…?_

When he got home, as expected, he was yelled at, punished, and so on and so forth; he didn't really care, it wasn't anything new to him. The Dursleys had always been a pain, but as pain goes, you got used to it.

Harry sighed, and got up. Rubbing his face, he looked at the calendar on the wall; that had been exactly five days ago, surly they weren't still mad? But Harry suspected that the real reason they were annoyed with him wasn't because he had hurt Dudley, but more that ever since he had come home, Dudley had been acting in a rather odd way.

"Dudley! Stop doing that!" Harry could hear his uncle's quite audible voice, bellowing at his son from down in the driveway, through the open window. Harry only vaguely registered this, because as of late, Dudley was acting so strangely, the whole thing was getting old quickly, so Harry just learned to ignore it.

The first of the odd things that Dudley had done wasn't exactly weird, but it was a little off putting. When the Dursleys had been yelling at Harry, for Dudley's nose breaking, he hadn't said a word, and just stared at the wall. As the days past, he began doing stuff that wasn't just off putting, but just plain strange.

He had gone out into the back garden one day, and had started wrapping the garden hose around a tree, and then had just walked away without a word when he was finished. The next day, he had 'teepeed' someone's house; the only problem was, that it was their house. And now by the sound of it, Dudley had unlocked Uncle Vernon's company car, and had filled the front seat with dirt.

At first Harry found this quite amusing, he suspected that it had something to do with the spell Emily had cast on him, but he couldn't be sure, maybe Dudley had just gotten brain damage from the fall.

Anyway, he hadn't seen the girls all week, and he was starting to worry; what if their mother had found out they had powers? How would she take it?

He wasn't sure if Mrs Figg would tell them everything, considering they were still young, and unmistakably unstable with their powers, but he hoped she would at least explain the basics, they deserved to know that much. Especially Elliot.

~~~~X~~~~

Harry hadn't been sleeping well, he had been plagued by dreams, most of which involving Voldemort, but others, had on occasion involved some extremely random things that didn't make much sense.

The dreams about Voldemort had been as they usually were; painful and confusing. But from what Harry could tell, he was somewhere very cold, because all he could see was snow, with red eyes glowing through the haze. And he could also hear something; pained, terrified screaming.

All of his dreams started like this, but as they progressed, his thoughts would sometimes stray to Hogwarts and its grounds; his mind taking long walks around the lake alone, but now and then he thought he saw the fuzzy outline of someone following close behind him; or have his consciousness float around the empty halls of Grimmauld place, most of the time dwelling in the ancient living room.

To be perfectly honest, when ever this happened a great sadness would flood his chest, and he would spend hours brooding, thinking about Sirius, Hogwarts, and all that he would have to leave behind, when he would one day, have to defeat Voldemort.

This brought thoughts of Ron and Hermione swimming to the surface of his mind. What would they say if they knew that he was acting this way, all by himself, thinking of his untimely demise? He shivered, and closed his eyes; it was almost midnight and he still wasn't asleep; he was to afraid of what he might see, or hear, but, considering that he hadn't had a solid nights rest in weeks, his exhaustion quickly caught up with him. His mind suddenly shut down, pulling him into a deep sleep.

Harry was alone, floating bodiless, surrounded by cold, white snow. Even though he didn't have skin anymore, he could feel goosebumps rising up his arms, making his body tingle from the cold, but only mildly, it was more like the ghost of a feeling, barely bothering him at all. He waited, wanting something to happen, to get it over with, but no one came.

There was something glowing in the distance, warm, flickering, it made him think of the crackling of a fire, which could mean only one thing; People.

He mentally took a step forward, but regretted it immediately. He was suddenly not bodiless anymore, and it was freezing! He wrapped his arms around himself, staring out into the blizzard that was forming around him. The flickering light had turned into a pair of slitted, red eyes, burning out from the centre of the snow storm at him, whipping his face, cutting his cheeks and arms.

He felt numb, and was losing felling in his fingers and toes. He fell over as he stumbled forward, landing in a snowdrift. He could now hear the screaming. It was loud and frightened; sounding like the person who was yelling out in agony was asking for it all to end. He hoped against hope that someone would come, anyone.

_Please, someone help them! Help! Please! Help…help me…?_

Harry suddenly realised that the person that had been screaming, was him.

And the dream, changed.

He was running, sprinting at top speeds down a slope at the edge of the lake, Hogwarts in the distance, framed magnificently against the setting sun. He saw there was someone running after him, as though hunting him. He tried to see who they were, but their appearance was blurred so that all he could see was their outline, and even though they were faceless, they seemed vaguely familiar.

He fell, face planting into the grass, and he could hear laughing. This too was familiar, but at the same time it was eerily different from the memory of whoever this person was, that his mind was refusing to let him remember. It was joyful and free from malice, it was almost…endearing.

"_Watch your step Harry, or do you want to crack the rest of your big head along that fault line you call a scar?"_ Said the mystery person, lightly teasing him. The voice was echoey, and slightly muffled, as if he was hearing it through a closed window.

Harry lifted himself off the ground onto his hands and knees, and found himself replying, _"Get a life–!" _

His words faltered. He knew he had just said the person's name, but like their appearance, his mind was not letting him know or hear what it was, blurring his speech, and this seriously frustrated him.

The person bent down and offered Harry a hand. _"Weak, very weak Potter. I'm starting to think your beginning to lose your touch."_ Harry took it, letting them pull him to his feet, but then backed away slightly out of embarrassment. This too confused Harry; why was he embarrassed?

"_So, what did you want to say to me? Surly it could have been said in the castle, or was it too disgraceful to be seen with me?"_ Harry could hear the smirk in the others voice and he could tell they weren't being serious, but even so, they had a certain tone of uncertainty in their voice that was almost unnoticeable, that made him think, that they really might care what his next answer was.

"_Well…"_ He gulped, why was this so hard to say? _"I–"_

But before he could say it, whatever it was, the dream changed again.

"_Harry?"_ someone said quietly.

"_What?"_ his head jolted up from the book that he had been reading, quickly snapping it shut. _"Harry mate, you've been staring at that page for over twenty minutes now."_ Said Ron, looking bemused.

They were sitting in the great hall, at one of the long house tables, surrounded by the normal lunchtime chatter, weak sunshine streaming through the large mullioned windows. It must be early spring.

"_Have I…? I didn't…notice…"_ Harry trailed off, feigning innocence, trying to discreetly slip the book away into his bag. Hermione frowned at him; she watched the book closely, spying something red out of the corner of her eye.

"_What's that?"_ she asked, pointing accusingly at the book's cover. Harry looked from Hermione to the book and back again, and then blushed. _"It-it's nothing."_ he mumbled, still trying to get it out of view, but the book kept getting caught on his bag as he feverishly stuffed in between his textbooks.

"_Give it here."_ Ron grabbed Harry's wrist, pulling the small book out of his hands, inspecting it. There was a thin, red ribbon tied in between the pages of the middle of the book, standing out against the black and white of the leather cover and crisp new pages, by the look of it, marking the page like a book mark. Harry protested, but Ron shook the book open to the marked page with one hand, the other planted on Harry's face, restraining him as he pin wheeled his arms, tying to retrieve the book.

Ron's face blanched and he looked furious. _"What does it say?"_ Hermione asked tentatively. Ron clenched his jaw and then resited_ "'Nose out weasel butt. If this was your book, then you would not only be able to afford better manners, but also a brain'."_ There was silence between the three for a moment, and then a small smirk curled the corners of Harry's lips.

Ron and Hermione gaped at Harry as he began to laugh. Ron scowled, then flipping to the first page, and read _"_'_To Harry, Merry Christmas. Hope yours is better than mine. I think this book will keep your secrets and thoughts better than you might think. –Infidelis.'"_

The surrounding light from the windows dimmed and everything started to melt and blur, causing everything to look grotesque and out of focus. Harry could feel himself floating out of his seat as Hermione and Ron and the scene below faded away to black, unsettling him slightly. He could feel himself waking up.

~~~~X~~~~

_Dear Hermione,_

_In you last letter you said that I should write to you, if I had anymore dreams like that one at the end of fifth year. Well, I have…_

_It's actually very confusing for me, because they start out like they normally do, with the whole Voldemort thing, but then they change at the end, and they don't feel like normal dreams anymore, or even like visions. _

_In one, there is this figure that I can't see very clearly or remember, like my memory is trying to block them out. And in another, I have this book –a journal I think– that insults Ron about the Weasley's being poor and stuff like that. But what really makes me feel weird, is that I actually laughed about it in the dream! I don't even know why, it's like in the dream, I was playing out a scene from a movie; I knew it was me, but I felt and acted differently. And don't say it's just because it was a dream, because it wasn't. They seem almost real, like…a memory, but not quite, something about them just feels off. _

_Ever since these dreams started, I feel on edge; I haven't been getting much sleep. Could you make some suggestions on what I could do? The dreams aren't particularly disturbing, but they do raise my stress levels and I don't really have anything to keep me occupied. The Dursleys grounded me last week, so I've already finished all my school work after being locked in my room, which I know doesn't really sound like me, but I was really __**that**__ bored. Maybe you could send me a book or something?_

_Missing you and Ron, Harry_

Harry sighed, sweeping his tried and failed drafts off his desk, reading through the completed letter again.

_Was it too much?_ He wondered, unsure.

He didn't want Hermione to think he was seriously freaked out about it –like if he questioned his sanity– but he couldn't really make what he wanted to say sound offhand and convincing at the same time in a letter, especially when he really did want her opinion on what to do. Finally making up his mind, he swivelled round in his desk chair, and called Hedwig down from the wardrobe, where she had contentedly been eating a spider she had caught earlier.

After he stroked her feathers a little, and told her her destination, he opened the window, and watched as she swooped out into the darkened street and off into the distance until she became a white speck on the horizon.

Harry hadn't been lying to Hermione when he said he'd had nothing to do for the past week, he had been literally bored out of his brains, and even after he was let out of his room and allowed to roam the house again, he still couldn't find anything entertaining to fill his time with. He'd read and reread all of his textbooks, finished his homework, cleaned his Firebolt (this earned Harry another two days locked in his room after Aunt Petunia walked in on him trimming the bent twigs in its tail), and fixed by hand, some old junk he had found in the Dursleys garage. It was maddening how bored he was.

The weekend before his birthday, he had made himself a cup of tea and had fallen asleep out on the front lawn, too jaded to do anything else, only to be woken up after a myriad of a mixture of unpleasant and oddly amusing dreams, with a bad sunburn smarting his skin, and his now cold cup of tea spilt all over his chest. The fact that his hair hadn't been cooperating even more than normal wasn't helping his mood either.

It wasn't until that following evening did anything of interest finally happen.

_Dear Harry,_

_Oh for goodness sake Harry, try to remember that your mail could be intercepted. You're starting to get as carless as Ron; three days ago he mailed Fred and George about a new product they're inventing, and the ingredients they mentioned weren't exactly –how should I say this?– legal…The ministry is searching our mail also, so we're kind of boxed in on what we may want to talk about, so just be a bit more carful okay?_

_But putting that aside, Harry if you're having dreams like the ones you've described, then if I dare to say so, you might want to read through some of your divination books. I know you may be surprised to hear this, but after having to put up with all that old dingbat's ranting about utter rubbish, and then to find out that there are real, legitimate prophecy's out there, I had to seriously relook through my reasoning for mistrusting in the subject. After some proper research, I found that if applied correctly, dream interpretation is actually a reliable way of looking into the subconscious, and because of wizards magical abilities, it sort of helps them tap into their future selves subconscious thoughts, allowing them to have glimpses of what may or may not happen. _

_So if you look into that you may be able to see some meaning in your dreams, I tested it out on some of my parents dreams and on myself, and they actually helped a lot. And about your boredom problems, I think I may have a solution. Do you by any chance own an old record player? If so, please tell me soon and what kind of music you like, I really would like to help you with this._

_And Harry, do try not to worry too much, it'll all turn out fine in the end._

_Love, Hermione _

A small smile crept across Harry's lips as he read through Hermione's familiar, friendly chides, feeling slightly relieved that nothing seemed to have really changed about his friends, and slowly realised that he had been over reacting; everything was fine, he didn't have any homework, he wasn't grounded anymore, and it seemed that even Voldemort had better things to do than bug him through subliminal messaging. Everything seemed to be right with the world at the moment.

Writing back cheerfully, he gave Hermione a brief list of the kind of music that he liked, an affirmative that he did own a record player –It had been one of the first bits of the Dursley's junk he had mended– and thanked her for her advice, telling her that he was looking forward to finding out why his most recent dreams had involved raining fish. This thought in mind –after he had sent Hedwig on her way– he retrieved his Divination text books from under his bed, flipping a few pages until he came upon the section on dreaming.

"Okay, today I dreamed about the journal again and raining fish…what does that mean?" He muttered to himself, already feeling stupid about what he was doing.

After about ten minutes, he gave up on trying to interpret the meaning of the journal; there were just too many meanings to choose from, all depending on things that he didn't find very important, such as if the book was open, closed, old or new, written in or blank, and many other differences he probably wouldn't have been able to remember anyway. So he turned his attention to the red ribbon that had marked a page in the dream book. But this too had a confusing meaning; it said that it meant he would one day make a very passionate lover, which made absolutely no sense to him.

Much to his chagrin, there wasn't anything about raining fish either, and when he tried interpreting them as separate things, it would give him mixed messages that told him he was going to have some great sadness or sorrow if he didn't like rain or some great happiness if he did, and that depending on what kind of fish it was, he would have a big disappointment, a positive opportunity arising that must be seized, or –heaven forbid– he was going to get pregnant, all of which sounded ludicrous and just plain insane.

Shutting the book dully, he lied back on his bed, and as he willed sleep to come to him, dreams or no dreams, he silently wished, that this coming school year things might be different. He dearly wanted for something good in his life to change, and he hoped it would not be temporary, like so many good things in his life had been.

Taking a deep breath as the clock struck twelve, he wished.

"Happy birthday Harry." He whispered.

~~~~X~~~~

The next day, Harry felt odd; he knew he had had dreams the previous night, more than one involving Voldemort, but he couldn't remember them properly, and when he tried to, all he got was an odd fuzziness in his brain. Dismissing this as normal early morning fatigue, he sat up, rubbing his eyes and placing his glasses on his nose. He sneezed. _Huh?_ Harry blinked then looked over to the window; it was wide open. He must have left it open after sending Hedwig to Hermione's.

He shrugged, then walking over to it, about to close it, he noticed that all the flowers in the front garden had burst into bloom, accompanied by a wide variety of wild flowers that had sprung up all over the Dursley's front lawn. Harry stared. He sneezed again. _Damn, I must have hay fever._ He rubbed his nose and watchedas a group of their neighbours past by, one of them pointed the flowers out and they stopped to stare to; every other lawn in the street was either struggling to stay green, or it had given up and died. Why on earth was it that the Dursley's front yard had suddenly turned into the Garden of Eden?

Unnerved by this, he shook his head and began to get dressed. _Maybe it's just luck. Either that or Aunt Petunia used some sort of bioengineered fertiliser on the grass._ Harry finished buttoning up his shirt, then sat back down on his bed. He waited. Nothing happened.

_Something doesn't feel right…_ he thought uneasily. _Something should be happening right?_ It took Harry a few minutes to mull over what felt different, and when he finally remembered what it was, he jumped, because something large and feathery had just hit the window.

"Hedwig!" He exclaimed. "Shut up Boy!" Uncle Vernon yelled up the stairs. " 'kay, sorry!" Harry looked back to the window and then wrenched it open. Hedwig looked very ruffled; all her feathers were standing on end, but despite this she jumped lightly into the room and hooted at him in greeting, only to sink to the floor again, weighed down by a wide, flat package.

"Come here." he murmured sympathetically, lifting her into her cage, untying the thin cord from around her legs. She nipped him gratefully on the hand, and dropped a field mouse into his open palm, surprisingly it was still alive.

"…Well…thankyou…thanks Hedwig, I'll…go put this somewhere…" Harry said over the squeaks of the field mouse. He walked over to his desk, and pulled out an old shoe box he kept pencils in, gently placing the mouse inside, making a mental note to release it later. Hedwig hooted in approval, then bent her head and helped herself to some owl treats at the bottom of her cage.

"Okay, it's my birthday, so…this must be from Hermione." He began unwrapping the flat package, pulling from under the brown paper Hermione's letter.

_Happy 16__th__ Harry!_

_Well, I got them as promised; three brand new records to your exact specifications. I hope you enjoy them, I wasn't sure what to get you at first, considering that we can't really play muggle music at Hogwarts because of magical interference, but then I remember I had seen an old gramophone in the muggle studies classroom, that doesn't need electricity. There is this really great music shop near my house that can get modern songs on record, you know for DJ's, and they had quite a wide selection, so I couldn't resist. They had lots of contemporary jazz and punk to choose from, so I thought I'd just buy a few records and then send you the address of the shop so you would be able to find more titles if you get bored with my choices. I hope this cures your boredom, I've always thought that starting a new hobbie can be very beneficial. _

Under this, the address of the music shop had been scribbled in Hermione's neat script. And from there the letter continued.

_Oh, just a question…you dreamed about raining fish? Even for you Harry, that's strange, but I guess it's no stranger than the time Ron dreamed he was being eaten by a Hungarian sausage._

Harry smirked at this, remembering when he had been at the Burrow and Ron had woken up at three in the morning, screaming "No! It's going to eat me! Too much spices!"

"What?" Harry had moaned sleepily.

"The salami! It's going to eat me Harry!"

Ever since, Fred and George had hid a different kind of preserved meat under Ron's pillow every night until the end of the summer holidays.

_I just arrived at the Burrow when I sent this, so I'm not sure what time it will get there. Also Ron says his present may be a little late, he said something about the twins attaching it to the chimney with a permanent sticking charm, and so you may have to wait awhile. Our O.W.L result should be arriving soon, I do hope I passed; I just know I screwed up my ancient runes result, but I guess it can't be helped._

_Good luck, and happy birthday Harry_

_Seeing you soon, Hermione_

Harry put the letter down, and pondered what Hermione had said; _Seeing you soon? How soon? _He sighed_. Stop it. don't get your hopes up, the summer's barely started, it's not like you're going to see them __**that**__ soon…_trying to distract himself, he thought of other, more mundane things; Now that he thought about it, his results should be arriving soon, along with his new book list from Hogwarts. _Wonder how I did? _He mused contemplatively.

As he thought about this, he pulled the remaining paper away, and examined his present; the first on the pile was an album by Corinne Bailey Rae, a modern jazz singer that Harry had heard a few times on the radio over the summer. The second, was an All Time Greats by the Sex Pistols, whose music he had really grown to appreciate, after Dudley had gotten bored of their music and had decided to throw all the CD's he owned away, which Harry had claimed immediately. And the third was a Greatest Hits from a few years previous.

He smiled; Hermione really did know how to brighten his day. Bending down, Harry retrieved the mended record player out from under his bed, and began setting it up on his desk. He selected one of the records and then pressed play.

_**Three little birds, sat on my window.**_

_**And they told me I don't need to worry.**_

_**Summer came like cinnamon**_

_**So sweet,**_

_**Little girls' double-dutch on the concrete.**_

Harry sat down and listened idly to the smooth jazz tunes, now and then finding himself singing along half-heartedly to the mellow lyrics, feeling very relaxed and contented. _This really was a good idea._ He mused, grateful to Hermione.

_**Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong,**_

_**but it's alright**_

_**The more things seem to change,**_

_**the more they stay the same**_

_**Oh, don't you hesitate.**_

_**Girl, put your records on,**_

_**tell me your favourite song**_

_**You go ahead, let your hair down**_

_**Sapphire and faded jeans, **_

_**I hope you get your dreams,**_

_**Just go ahead, let your hair down.**_

_**You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.**_

Lying back on his pillows, he closed his eyes.

_Maybe this summer won't be so bad. By the sounds of it, Ron and Hermione are having fun. I guess I should ask Mrs Weasley if I can come visit before the holidays are over, she'd probably like that. Ah, but now that I think about it, she's probably busy with the Order, maybe it would be better to wait until… _

_**Blue as the sky, **_

_**sunburnt and lonely,**_

_**Sipping tea in the bar by the roadside,**_

_**(just relax, just relax)**_

_**Don't you let those other boys fool you,**_

**_Got to love that afro hair do._**

**_Maybe sometimes,_**

**_we feel afraid, but it's alright_**

**_The more you stay the same, _**

**_the more they seem to change._**

**_Don't you think it's strange?_**

Hedwig began hooting nervously at him, flapping her wings as an odd rattling noise began coming from the desk. Assuming it to be the mouse running around in the draw, or something like that, Harry kept his eyes shut and ignored it.

**_Girl, put your records on, _**

**_tell me your favourite song_**

**_You go ahead, let your hair down_**

**_Sapphire and faded jeans, _**

**_I hope you get your dreams,_**

**_Just go ahead, let your hair down._**

**_You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.  
_**

**_'Twas more than I could take, _**

**_pity for pity's sake_**

**_Some nights kept me awake, _**

**_I thought that I was stronger_**

**_When you gonna realise, _**

**_that you don't even have to try any longer?_**

**_Do what you want to._**

**_Girl, put your records on, _**

**_Tell me your favourite song_**

**_You go ahead, let your hair down_**

**_Sapphire and faded jeans,_**

**_I hope you get your dreams,_**

**_Just go ahead, let your hair down._**

There was a loud bang, making Harry jerk up from his bed to stare at his desk, which was now shaking. Hedwig screeched and flew out of her cage towards the window, deciding to get out of there before something bad happened.

**_Girl, put your records on, _**

**_tell me your favourite song_**

**_You go ahead, let your hair down_**

**_Sapphire and faded jeans,_**

**_I hope you get your dreams,_**

**_Just go ahead, let your hair down._**

**_Oh, you're gonna find yourself somewhere, someho–!_**

The record player slid off the desk and crashed to the floor, just as the top draw burst open. What Harry saw was both disturbing and horribly familiar; from within the shoe box, the field mouse slowly began to grow in size, its features stretching and spreading out across its face, rearranging themselves and becoming more human.

Finally, after the whole gruesome ordeal was over, a stocky, grumpy looking old wizard, wearing a raccoon skin coat and matching hat, stepped rigidly from the now broken desk drawer. He looked up and glared at Harry. After staring scrutinisingly at him for a few seconds, the rough looking man muttered brusquely, "You! Stupid child. Who told you put animals in shoe box! I could have died! No air!" His voice was very hoarse and thick with a heavy Russian accent. Lost for words, Harry stood, carefully stepping towards the other wizard.

"W-who are you?" He finally managed.

Still scowling at him, he bowed stiffly, and stated "I am Professor Vatsky, your new teacher at Hogvarts." Taken aback, Harry continued to stare, still uncertain on what to say next.

"You!"

"Y-yes!" Harry spluttered; he wasn't used to this kind of treatment; it was like being in the army.

"Speak! Do not keep staring like dead fish!"

"Um, ah…W-why are you here?"

"You will name me as Professor Vatsky! You will ask no questions! It is time we go!"

Harry felt dumbstruck as he watched open mouthed, Professor Vatsky levitate half the contents of Harry's room over to his trunk, letting it fall into a pile of mismatched socks, spell books, underwear, and Harry's birthday presents, and then use a compacting charm on the lot of it before slamming the lid shut.

"Move!" he ordered. Jumping, Harry immediately motioned to grab Hedwig's cage, but as his fingers were about to close around the bars, the cage soared over to the Russian wizard, by means of a spell, and he barked "Too slow!" He put the cage on top of the trunk, and then shrank them, turning them into miniature versions of themselves, and proceeded to stow them away in the deep, left pocket of his coat.

"Outside! Now!" He commanded, indicating the window with his wand. "What?" Harry was looking from the window then back to his professor, hardly able to believe what he was asking of him. Pushing him roughly in the back with his wand, Harry yelled and fell forwards through the window, only to be cushioned upon impact by an enchanted bush, which promptly spat him out onto the overly flower covered ground.

"Shit." Harry muttered as he picked up his glasses, which had cracked. Professor Vatsky landed squarely beside him, still on his feet, and motioned for him to stand. Doing so, Harry stuffed his broken glasses into his jeans, then scowled up at this odd, and frankly, rather rude wizard.

"Arm." he muttered. Harry hesitated; he could guess what was coming. "Are we apparating?" "No questions!" the man barked again. Frowning in displeasure, Harry held out his arm reluctantly, and was grasped tightly by Vatsky, who suddenly made an abrupt turn, yanking Harry along with him, into complete darkness, accompanied by a horrible squeezing sensation in his abdomen, making it hard to breath.

It all but lasted a few seconds, but when the dark, pressuring feeling ended, and light and air burst into Harry's vicinity, he was gasping for breath. After the general shock had worn off, he realised where he was.

"Harry! When did you get here?" said a delighted Ron. 


	2. Letters to the editor

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the content of J.K Rowling's books, but I do own all of my OC's, the plot of this fanfiction, some spells, and the possibility of Australia winning the Quidditch Word Cup against Spain.

**Pairings: **HP/DM and HG/RW, maybe others later (who knows.)

**Warnings:** This fanfiction is non prejudice; that means love of any sort is not a problem here, so if it bugs you, bugger off.

**Additional Warnings:** Read the warnings on the first chapter if you don't remember, and no there isn't anything particularly weird in this one either.

**A/N: **ARGGGG! I'm so sorry guys! I've just been so busy for the past... *checks calendar*...five months...yeah that's bad...oh hell whatever. I know the first chapter sucked but who cares, I'm sure this one will be better. Also, just to let you know, in all the time I've been away, I've been doing lots of research amongst other things, so I think my writings improving. Please review and go ahead and tell me otherwise if you want, just as long as the review is credible.

Oh, and thank you to memories-of-hope who was first to review, and to Coco-chan380, empressris, and Kassandra-Nichole for adding this story to your favourites. It makes me smile.

This is a songfic, so the theme song for this chapter is **"Oh My God" by ****Lily Allen**

On with the story!

**Living in Tomorrow**

**Chapter 2**

**Letters to the editor**

Though his arrival at the Burrow had been abrupt, as well as exceptionally unsettling –and this was an understatement– it had never the less been exactly what Harry had hoped for; an escape. After he had been met quite enthusiastically by Ron out in the Weasley's veggie patch, and Professor Vatsky had marched off into the house without a word, he had been filled in on the reason why he had practically been abducted from the Dursley's without any notice.

"Well, with all the secrecy and stuff going on at the moment, we couldn't have told you mate. It would've defeated the purpose of sending a member of the Order after you."

"But what are the Dursley's going to say when they find I'm gone?" Harry hesitated, what was he saying, the Dursley's would probably be doing a victory dance the moment they saw that he had left.

"Oh, we took care of that; you know when Mum sent your aunt and uncle that letter before the Quidditch World Cup in fourth year?"

"Yeah…" Harry said slowly, how could he forget? Mrs Weasley, having had no experience with muggle post before, had plastered every inch of the envelope with stamps, lowering the dursleys view of wizards even further.

"She sent them a note explaining. Just a question though; why don't muggles buy the envelopes with the stamps already on them? I think I've used up a life supply of spit after that one."

Harry groaned, but did not comment. Why should he even bother?

"Come on; let's get inside, everyone's going to be really happy to see you." Ron began shepherding Harry towards the house, pushing him lightly in the shoulder. Harry raised an eyebrow at him.

"Wait. What's going on? Is there a reason you're treating me like a sheep?"

"Oh," Ron went slightly pink "um, I still haven't gotten your present unstuck from the roof…"

"It's not underwear is it?" Harry grinned.

"No!" Ron had gone bright red, and without meaning to, pushed Harry headfirst into the shed wall.

"Ow! Ron it was just a joke!" but he was laughing despite the slight throbbing in his head, and after a moment Ron was grinning too.

"Wasn't my fault, you should watch where you're going. That reminds me, where're your glasses? You're practically blind without them." Harry pulled them out of his pocket and showed them to Ron, who tutted as he inspected them.

"Really Harry, you should consider contacts, the number of times Hermione's had to fix these things…" Harry smirked "You sound just like her; she thinks I should get contac–" Harry blinked "Wait, since when have you known what contacts are?" Ron looked up at him, and putting on a mock insulted tone of voice, said "Oh you think just because I'm a wizard, I can't know things about the muggle world?" Harry looked at him sceptically, waiting for his façade to crack.

"Oh okay, okay. I asked Hermione, happy?" Ron admitted half-heartedly.

"Yes. Very. By the way, why were you asking about contacts anyway?"

"Um, I think I was asking her what I should get you for your birthday, I can't really remember…" Ron said evasively, he sounded a little uncomfortable. Harry frowned; was it something he'd said?

"You know, if the present is made of fabric, you can just use a severing charm on it and stitch it up later. I don't mind." He said, hoping to lift Ron's mood. It apparently worked, because his expression brightened almost instantly. "Yeah, I think I'll go do that. Thanks Harry. Oh, um, just go inside while I–"

"I get it, I'm going." Harry reassured him as Ron ran off towards the back of the house.

Squinting slightly, Harry began walking towards the house, only tripping once on a stray gnome, which decided to attack his ankles, probably thinking it had a fighting chance against him while he was blind. After a brief struggle and a distinct howl of displeasure that came from the gnome after Harry kicked it in the face, Harry managed to shake it off.

Attempting to locate his current position again, having spun around a bit from tying to free himself of the gnome, he stumbled over Mrs Weasley's chickens, and swore loudly when one flew up in his face and started pecking him. _What is with animals today? First a field mouse turns into a Russian guy, saying he's my new teacher, second I'm attacked by an ugly gnome, now chickens are acting like I'm the scourge of the chicken existence!_

Deciding it would be safer to just call for someone then continuing to stumbling around like an idiot, he beat off the chicken and stayed put. "Um, hello!" Harry called out uncertainly.

It was silent for a moment, but then Harry heard a soft scuffling, and one or two giggles that were hastily cut off.

"Okay…?" Harry took two tentative steps forward, listening carefully.

"…Shh! Fred, put that down now…! George, you too…everyone keep quiet, he's coming…oh Ginny for goodness sake, not now…" At the sound of Mrs Weasley's flustered tellings off, a huge grin spread across Harry's face as he slowly realised what was going on. Making up his mind, he walked the remaining five feet towards the house, hoping he wouldn't fall over again, and pushed the kitchen door open.

The resultant explosion of sound and colourful light that hit him when he entered the room almost knocked him off his feet, and if he could see he was certain he would've been blinded.

"Happy Birthday Harry!" the room yelled, closely followed by two or three high pitched squeals, and him nearly being flattened when three people, most likely female, jumped on him and gave him a bone cracking hug.

"Harry dear, it's so good to see you! Oh, you've grown so much–"

"Wow, Harry I never knew that's what you really looked like under your specs," "Yeah, if we'd known, we would have thrown them in the lake with the giant squid ages ago."

"Harry, don't just stand there, come open your presents."

"Mum, the lunch is burning!"

"Okay, enough!" Harry yelled, bringing immediate silence to the busy room. Whoever it was that was holding him let go, allowing him to take a few slow calming breaths before he smiled.

Harry heard the kitchen door swing open again before he could respond, and along with it came the mild smell of burnt cotton. Ron's voice came from behind him, and he sounded slightly annoyed. "Hermione, did you _have_ to start without me? I want to be a part of this party as much as you do." "Oh shut up Ron, your just didn't want to miss out on the cake." Ginny's voice sounded amused, and Harry could hear the twins sniggering to his left.

Ron and Ginny started bickering as the noise slowly started to rise again within the cramped kitchen, and Harry grinned when he heard a loud "Ow!" come from Ron's direction when he said "just because I rubbed some icing off of the cake, doesn't mean I'm going to stuff my face like you did last week when mum made pudding!"

"Harry?" Harry felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he recognised it as Hermione's.

"Yeah?" He turned to her. "Um, do you need me to fix something for you?" "What? Oh…yeah, my glasses. Here." He handed them to her, and waited a few minutes for her to inspect them, and then cast the charm. "Thanks, it was a nightmare walking to the door; you wouldn't believe– Um, Hermione?" He had extended his hand to accept his glasses back, but Hermione kept them clasped firmly in her hand.

"Harry, you know I've been over this with you more times than I can count; how did they break this time?" she asked sternly. Smiling a little sheepishly at her, he said "I, um…sort of…landed on my face?" He knew she was cross with him; he couldn't even remember how often the glass in his glasses had cracked from him doing something dangerous, or in this case, unfortunately abrupt, but he still thought she was overeating, just a little.

She huffed in annoyance, but handed them back to him never the less. Putting them on he continued to listen as she berated him. "Harry, if you do not take more care with them, then I'm not fixing them again; you should replace them anyway; every time you travel by floo powder, they either get dirty or crack, and when you're playing Quidditch they get fogged up or wet when it rains–" "Yeah, but then I just put an '_Impervius'_ charm on them don't I?" Harry defended himself as Hermione and the surrounding environment came into view.

Her hair was held back in two thick plaits, with some of it escaping and falling in her face, and her skin had gotten a bit freckly, probably from being on holiday somewhere sunny, and she was glaring at Harry with her hands on her hips in a very 'Mrs Weasley' manner. Though far from chilling his blood, he snorted and covered his mouth, attempting to not laugh.

"What's so funny?" She asked, looking confused. "N-nothing, it's just…if your hair was red right now, I would be asking myself when Ron got himself another sister."

"We can do something about that!" Chorused the twins, and almost immediately Fred aimed his wand at Hermione and there was a faint 'pop'.

Hermione squeaked and ducked, but the spell was already taking effect; one by one, each bushy hair on her head slowly changed from their normal chocolate brown to…

"Red! You dyed my hair red you prats!" Hermione yell at Fred and George as they roared with laughter, huge grins plastered across their faces. "Don't be ridiculous, we would never dare dye your hair red."

"In our opinion it's more a strawberry blond." They burst out laughing as Hermione's hair grew slightly redder along with her face. When Fred and George had calmed down enough to wipe the tears of mirth from their eyes, they gulped at the furious expression on her face.

"Blimey. Fred, is it just me or is there a young version of Mum standing in front of us?", "I think you might be right George…" At this precise moment Hermione's temper exploded and she was advancing on the twins, but just before she could reach them they apparated away, and their guffaws could be heard echoing down from upstairs. "Harry, think of this as a birthday gift from us!" one of them yelled.

"You twats!" Hermione yelled back.

Harry tried to hide a smile as Hermione inspected her now ludicrously red hair and barely managed to hold back a snigger when Ron, who had just finished his argument with Ginny, finally noticed what had happened. He stared open mouthed at Hermione as if she had grown six arms and an extra head.

"Hermione...?" Ron sounded dumbfounded, and blinked stupidly at her as she slowly cooled down, her face decreasing from its furious shade of beetroot to a milder shade of pink.

"W-well–!" she spluttered for a moment, obviously struggling to find the right words. "…um, well I… Ron, I just don't know how you deal with those two!" she concluded finally, looking angry, but also a little confused.

She looked around the room for a moment, almost desperately like she couldn't figure out what to do next, but was saved the necessity when Ginny whistled, and said almost appreciatively "Hermione, you know that isn't a bad look for you. I bet if you kept the red look for awhile, you might actually attract some attention." After she said this she kicked Ron in the shin, making him stumble. "Ow! Stop doing that!"

Hermione once again flushed a deep scarlet, but made no comment. Instead she just stared at the wall, pretending that she could not see the equally embarrassed expression on Ron's face. Feeling he was missing something here, Harry just kept silent, until Mrs Weasley taped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Harry dear, how was your holiday? I can't deny that I was worried about you, especially with this lack of communication now that all the owl post is being searched, but even so; Ron said you've been a bit quiet for the past few weeks…" her expression was soft, but a little cautious.

Feeling a little guilty, he swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. He hadn't meant to make the Weasley's worry, but with all that had happened in June...he had had a lot to think over.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts and back to the present, he hitched a reassuring smile onto his face.

"Oh, they were fine, really Mrs Weasley. I just felt like some alone time is all...besides, nothing really goes on much at the Dursley's…" she raised an eyebrow at this.

"Um… well I might want to rephrase that…" Harry conceded, smiling weakly. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't recount a single _normal _summer spent at the Dursley's after he had started at Hogwarts.

She sighed, and then smiled back, looking a little less worried. "Well Harry dear, if your sure your okay, then I think it's about time we start this little party don't you agree?" Harry grinned.

Even though this summer seemed to be just as unpredictable as the past five, he could at least count on one thing; the fact that they always happened to end with the Weasley's, one way or another.

~~~~X~~~~

Hours, and several slices of cake later, Harry was sitting quietly in Ron's room, smiling lightly, completely at his ease; that had been one of the best birthdays he'd ever had. Looking vaguely out the window, at a fight that was going on between a passing gnome and a chicken, he thought about what had happened that day.

Hermione had tried everything to get her hair back to its natural colour, but all that had happened when she tried, was it went even darker, and stayed stubbornly red, much to her fury. Of course she had asked molly for her help, but as expected she couldn't do anything about it either. Though, this little piece of intervention had unexpectedly resulted in Hermione's hair changing from a dark ginger colour, to an odd shade of crimson, almost the colour of a well aged red wine. This had caused quite a few different reactions to occur. The first of which was obviously Hermione breaking into hysterics over what professor McGonagall would say when she saw her, the second was Mrs Weasley bellowing at the twins "IF YOU TWO DON'T TELL ME THE COUNTER-JINX THIS INSTANT, I'LL SEND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR BIRTHDAY, CHRISTMAS AND EASTER LETTERS AS HOWLERS!" this of course, didn't seem to have any effect.

During this hilarious escapade, which involved Mrs Weasley chasing Fred and George with bat bogey hexes all around the burrow, Harry, Ron and Ginny had eaten most of the cake and opened Harry's presents, while Hermione sulked in a corner. He'd received; a deck of exploding snap cards from Ginny, each depicting a moving image relating to Quidditch in some way (like instead of a king of spades, it was a seeker of snitches); a black, high-neck jumper from Mrs Weasley, with a small, golden monogram sticked into the left hand corner; a copy of 'Quidditch Though the Ages', which had been autographed by the captain of the Holly Head Harpies from Mr Weasley, and from Ron he had gotten a pair of navy-blue jeans, but these jeans were a bit odd.

"Ron…?" Harry said uncertainly, staring at the denim in his hand. "Why are you giving me _girl's _jeans…?" Ron went bright red, and Ginny burst into fits of laughter that made her fall off her chair. "See! I told you they were girl's jeans Ron!" she gasped from the floor, still laughing. Ron was now a similar colour to Hermione's hair. "I–didn't–know…" he said through clenched teeth, looking like he was struggling to restrain himself from punching her. Harry inspected the jeans; they looked brand new, and had a small green star embroidered on the back, which harry thought should have been an obvious sign that they weren't meant for guys. "Blame mum, she gave me the pattern…Ginny, do you realise how hard it is to make clothes by magic!" Ron yelled at his sister, getting to his feet.

Mrs Weasley marched into the room, looking out of breath and irritable, then said in a reprimanding tone "Calm down Ronald! Harry dear, I know the jeans may be too…um…feminine for you, but according to Dumbledore, all the sixth year students are required to bring at least one piece of second hand clothing to school this year, and I know that you don't really have that much to spare, but if you take those, it should all work out fine; I think you might be giving them to charity at some point, Dumbledore didn't really say much…" nodding, but feeling this was a rather odd thing for Dumbledore to request, he turned back to watch Ginny start hiccupping, as Mrs Weasley dashed off, probably still searching for the twins.

Harry had also been given what looked like a life time supply of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products from Fred and George, which included extendable ears, all three variations of skiving snack boxes, a screaming yo-yo, a box of canary creams (which he fully intended to dispose of, just in case be forgot what they were and ate one; he did not intend to become a giant bird of any description at all this year), and a small glass bottle of something...pink...

"What's this…?" Harry asked weakly. "Ah. That my good sir is an Epithymo elixir." Gorge said theatrically, having escaped Mrs Weasley's bogey attack. Frowning, Harry asked "And what exactly _is_ an Epithymo Elixir?" he had seen some of the things that the twins had cooked up in their time at Hogwarts, but now that they had left school, he knew they were able to procure some items that in most people's opinions weren't exactly safe, and most of the time illegal; if the twins were planning on giving him something that didn't at least come with health warnings and an instruction manual, then he wanted no part in it.

This worry probably showed on his face, because George raised an eyebrow and a mischievous smirk played upon his lips. "Well Harry, what do _you_ think it is?" So he was going to play the evasion card was he, well two could play at that game. "I don't know. I just know it's swirly and pink and was given to me by someone I have good reason not to trust." Harry said innocently, feigning dimness. "Oh Harry, I'm hurt." Fred said in mock disappointment, coming up behind them. "But since you so readily insist, we'll tell you for old times' sake."

Hermione seemed to have noticed the bottle in Harry's hand, because she immediately sprang from her seat and snatched it from his grasp. "Hey!" he said.

"No, I'm sorry, but you can't give something like that to Harry! Even if you're selling this sort of thing at your shop, I absolutely can not stand by and watch you making a fool out of him!"

"He won't make a fool out of himself Hermione, I've seen their results; it works like a charm." Ron said lazily. Hermione rounded on him with an expression of incredulity. "Don't tell me you've used it!"

"Don't be daft! I'm just saying that _Harry_ wouldn't make a fool out of himself; he'd be responsible with it…" Ron pause, then said "Well, more responsible than me anyway… " Ginny nodded in agreement, but Harry wasn't sure if it was to agree that he should use the potion, or her just agreeing that if Ron took some he would definitely make an idiot out of himself.

"Is anyone going to tell me what this stuff does, or am I going to have to drink it to find out?" Harry said, a trace of annoyance colouring his voice. Hermione looked livid, but she didn't say anything while Ron explained.

"Well, I've heard about it from Bill originally, but these two found out more about it since then. It's this potion that's supposed to…um… make you more ambitious?" he looked questioningly at the twins, but Hermione snorted. "Oh really? Does it, Mr 'it works like a charm'? That's not even half of what it does, and you know it." "You explain then, we're all _dyeing_ to hear!" Hermione's cheeks went pink and she looked a little upset at the dig he had given about her hair, but she acted as if she hadn't heard him, and proceeded to give a more accurate description.

"The full name of the Epithymo Elixir is 'yposyneídi̱to epithymo̱'" she said, like she was reading from the page of an invisible text book. "which is Greek for 'subconsciously desired'. This potion has been the subject of debate for centuries, because of its unique qualities and its varying effects, and also because of its tendency to make the wizard whom has consumed it, _regret their actions later_." At this part, she glared intensely at Ron who glared back with equal intensity before she continued.

"As the name suggests, the purpose of this concoction is to prompt a wizard to fulfil their subconscious desires by any means possible, often resulting in the wizard/witch performing magic or social acts of consequence unintentionally. Some examples of this are, if a young witch envied a muggle girl for her beauty, she would accidently cast a spell on herself, which would make her look exactly like her, subsequently becoming a muggle herself and not be able to change back. Another is, if an old wizard desired to be young again, he would wake up the next morning as a baby, and not remember his name, who he was, or how he had got there. And you Harry, if you wanted to win a Quidditch match, you would find yourself never wanting to stop winning, and in essence, never wanting to stop playing! Do you now understand why I don't want you to use something like that?" she finished seriously.

Harry stared at her, and then to the faintly glowing bottle in her hand; what had the twins been thinking? "Um, thanks Hermione…" he said quietly; he didn't want to make it sound like he didn't appreciate the gift. "That's quite all right. But just to be safe I'm going to give this to a teacher when we get to school; Dumbledore at least should be able to put a ban on this before you two can start marketing it. Oh yes, I know you haven't started selling it commercially yet! Don't think I can't find out about these things. Besides, did you really expect Ron to keep it a secret?" The twins had made noises of protest and then gaped at her in disbelief, before glaring daggers at Ron, who looked sheepish for telling on them. "Um…it's not my fault?" he tried, but already he knew he was in trouble.

~~~~X~~~~

The next day began pleasantly enough, Harry thought, but that was before their Hogwarts letters arrived.

Harry had been sitting alone at the Weasley's kitchen table, amusedly eating an interesting brand of wizarding cereal he had found in one of the cupboards which changed colour as you chewed, when a loud shriek from upstairs mad him choke on a green, bat shaped chunk of cereal. Coughing and a bit watery eyed, he drew his wand from his pyjama pocket and started towards the stairs, but before he could take two steps, Hermione came running into view, still in her nightdress, waving three envelops in her hand, a look of panic on her face.

"Harry! They're here! They're actually here!" She shrieked hysterically. Throwing him his letter across the room as if it had burned her, she turning around and yelled up the stairs "Come on Ron! Don't you care in the slightest what you got in your O.W.L's!" Harry waited a little while, and then watched in amusement as a puffy eyed Ron slowly made his way down from the second landing, a look of murder on his face. "Hermione, it's only six o'clock in the morning! Can't you give it a rest?" he whined loudly.

"No! No, I can't! This is very important Ronald! Though from the way your acting, it makes me feel like you _want_ to fail!" she said accusingly, as if daring him to say otherwise. Ignoring this, Ron just yawned and looked at Harry blearily, still not fully awake. "What are you doing up? I thought you at least might wake up at a normal time." Harry looked uneasy; the reason why he was awake at such an ungodly hour, was because he'd been awoken by another one of those strange dreams, the most notable of which involving Ron finding a letter addressed to Harry, that insinuated that Ron was 'an oversized, blundering twat', much to the dream Harry's hilarity.

Harry hadn't told Ron about these dreams, and considering their contents, he had good reason to keep it that way.

"Um, I thought if I got up early enough, we might be able to practice a bit, you know for Quidditch? I've wanted to play for weeks." He promptly lied through his teeth, sending Hermione a meaningful look, which was returned when Ron yawned again. "What? Oh, sure! That sounds great. I've actually been meaning to talk to you about that; what do think about this year's odds? I know that I–" but Ron was cut off by an indignant looking Hermione, who smacked him in the head with his Hogwarts letter to shut him up.

"If you two don't mind, I'd like to know if I should be booking a bed in St Mungo's for intense mental strain." She said stiffly. Getting the message, Harry picked up his letter and quickly broke the red, wax seal on his letter and Ron followed suit. Trying to ignore the piercing stare that Hermione was observing them with, Harry looked down the page slowly, and began to read the neat, typewriter script.

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_The following exam results have been graded and reviewed thoroughly by the Wizarding Examinations Authority on behalf of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In accordance with your application to begin studies in dark wizard apprehension (auror training), you have met the required standards needed to qualify for this field of work. It is our great pleasure to present you with a total of eight O.W.L's. We hope to continue seeing this high standard of work in the future._

_Yours sincerely, _

_Griselda Marchbanks _

Below this were the marking criteria, and the subjects and grades he had passed and failed in his exams.

_**O**__ – Outstanding, __**E**__ – Exceeds Expectations, __**A**__ – Acceptable,_

_**P**__ – Poor, __**D**__ – Dreadful, __**T**__ – Troll _

_History of magic – __**D**_

_Astronomy – __**A**_

_Charms – __**E**_

_Herbology – __**E**_

_Transfiguration – __**E**_

_Care of Magical Creatures – __**E**_

_Divination – __**E**_

_Potions - __**O**_

_Defence Against the Dark arts – __**O**_

Harry stared transfixed at the parchment, he couldn't even speak; someone must have made a mistake; Who in their right mind would give Harry an 'Exceeds Expectations' in Divination, and an 'Outstanding' in Potions? He reread it three times, just to make sure, and then he flipped it over to check if there was anything else. There was. Crammed into the bottom left corner, in a very untidy scribble, was a small note.

_P.S._

_Your description of the polyjuice potion in your theory potions exam was most excellent, and has in the view of the Wizarding Examinations Authority, earned you an O for your most informative account of its effects. _

And after this rather formal statement was;

_P.S.S_

_Thank you so very much Mr Potter for your help. If you had not informed me –during the tealeaf reading in your Divination examination– that I would be shortly meeting a dark soggy stranger, then my nephew Alexander would have died from pneumonia. He was visiting me all the way from Edinburgh, and because he is a squib, he could not apparate, and subsequently got soaked in the downpour that developed as he was making the trip from the train station to my place of residence. Because of this, I revised your previous mark, and hope that there are no hard feelings between us for my doubt in your divinatory skills. _

_Forever thankful,_

_Griselda Marchbanks _

Harry just couldn't believe it; he had passed his potions exam _and_ –for once in his life– he had predicted someone's future accurately, when normally, if you asked him something simple like what day of the week it was, he'd need a calendar to do it.

"Well, I've done alright. How about you mate? Harry?" Harry looked up; Ron was looking questioningly at him, and Hermione was looking at him too, but her hands seemed to be very focused of crushing her unopened Hogwarts letter in her hands. "Um…I…" unable to think of anything to say, he just handed Ron his letter mutely to read. He took it with a look of confusion on his face, but began to read without comment, with Hermione skimming it from over his shoulder.

His expression changed a few times as he read; the first, his normal confused look, and then he looked mildly surprised and pleased, but as he neared the bottom, both his eyebrows shot up and threatened to disappear into his hair line. Both Hermione and Ron looked up and gawked at him, but before either of them could say anything, Harry twirled his finger in a circle, to indicate they should read the back before they start to ask questions.

Doing so, they quickly read the note, and then they both reacted rather peculiarly. Hermione went "Ha!" and grinned like a madman, and Ron made a choking noise, like he was coughing up a fur ball. "I can see your both very happy for me." Harry said dryly.

Hermione was the first to recover, so she said, still laughing "Well, at least we now know we won't be in danger of catching a cold, the next time Harry drinks a cup of tea!"

"…Blimey Harry. And here I thought you couldn't get any weirder; you're going to start walking around yelling people's future at the sky like Trelawney now, are you?" Harry punched him, and scowled when they continued to laugh, but considering the circumstances, he cracked a smile to.

"So what did you get?" Harry asked. "An A in charms, transfiguration and potions, an E in defence against the dark arts and care of magical creatures," Ron said, screwing up his face slightly as he tried to recount from memory, "Um, oh yeah, a P in Astronomy, a T in History of Magic– don't look at me like that Hermione, you know as well as I do that I would fail that one! Oh and I got an A in Divination…" he finished, mumbling the last part fast, like he was trying to say it without the other two noticing. "Ha! And you say that I'm the weird one. How did yougeta passing grade when you ended up describing your examiner's reflection, rather than describing his future in the crystal ball?"

Huffing indignantly, Ron said "Remember how all the examiners didn't really look that enthusiastic when they were assessing us?" "Yeah?" Harry nodded. "Well apparently, so few students actually pass that exam, because the subjects so farfetched, that anyone who has even the slightest chance of their prediction coming true, get's given an automatic pass." He looked back at his letter and read aloud "Your prediction of me seeing an, I quote 'ugly man with a wart on his nose' came true the following morning after your examination, when I look in the mirror to brush my teeth." Harry laughed and Hermione just rolled her eyes, and said "Oh well, at least you got a better mark for it then you did last year."

"So, are you going to read your results, of are me and Harry going to have to wait for a new copy to be sent to you?" Hermione frowned "What?" "You're squishing your letter." Harry pointed out. "Oh." Hermione looked down at he crushed letter, then gulped quite audibly. "Um…do you want me to open it?" Harry asked, tentatively. "N-no. I'm fine." She said a little higher than normal, as she unfolded her letter and slit it open. Harry noticed that her hands were shaking. They waited silently as she read, and as her face began to pale, Harry held his breath, knowing something was coming.

After a few deadly silent minutes, Hermione looked up. "I-I got an E in a-ancient runes…" she whispered, sounding a bit choked. She looked stricken, and her eyes started to mist over as it slowly began to sink in. "Um…Hermione, are you all right–" but Ron's question of concern evaporated the very second tears began to form, and when she wailed "I knew it! I knew I wouldn't get that one! I'm so stupid!" sighing, Harry patted her gently on the shoulder, trying to offer some comfort; Honestly, Hermione cared too much about school work.

"Ah…" Ron looked alarmed, and not knowing what else to do, he took Hermione's letter from her and looked at it. "B-but look! You got full marks in everything else!" he tried to reassure her, but it didn't seem to be working. Looking at Harry with a pleading look on his face, he silently asked for help, but Harry just shook his head, not knowing what to do either. Ron looked back at Hermione with pity, and taking a deep breath, he gave her a sort of awkward hug, instantly silencing her sobs.

"What's all this noise?" came Mr Weasley's voice as he popped his head around the corner of the staircase, looking at the three of them worriedly. "Hi Mr Weasley. Hermione is just disappointed that she passed her O.W.L with flying colours." Harry said smiling a little, as Ron stared at the top of Hermione's head with a look of intense confusion on his face.

Slowly, the remaining residence of the burrow began to make their way downstairs for breakfast, yawning and tripping occasionally on a dropped slipper or Crookshanks –this woke them up quite effectively– and filled the kitchen with normal early morning chatter.

Hermione hadn't spoke much since she had read her letter, but she was at least smiling about something as Ginny chatted with her about school, and Ron and the twins were laughing at a letter they had received from Bill, apparently something to do with Gringotts, and it seemed that Mr and Mrs Weasley were busy, talking in hushed voices, probably about the Order, so, feeling a little left out, Harry sat down to continue eating his breakfast as he listened in to a few conversations.

"Hermione, are you completely and absolutely one-hundred-percent-sure? I mean, come on." Ginny whispered to her, looking close to hilarity. "Yes, quite sure. I saw it myself as he was leaving." She said, turning a bit pink, but giggling a little to. "But, why would a defence against the dark arts teacher need one of those for? It's not like it goes with his eyes." Ginny almost choked as she tried not to laugh. Hermione went even pinker but she put on a face of innocence. "Maybe he just likes to _dress_ up?" she said sweetly, before she and Ginny burst into fits of uncontrollable giggles.

Slightly disturbed at the thought of what exactly Hermione had seen, Harry ate some more cereal, and focused instead on the group of smirking, red headed brothers, that were hunched over talking.

"Ha! Let's see the little prat strut around school now; he'll be begging soon, I'm sure of it." Ron muttered gleefully, with murmurs of agreement from the twins. Curious, Harry scooted closer. "What's going on?" He asked. This question was met instantly with evil grins from Fred and George, and Ron said "I'll give you three guesses. He's a smarmy git." It took Harry less than five seconds to guess. "Malfoy?" He asked. "Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner." George said. "And here we thought you wouldn't get it." Fred said in mock surprise "We thought you'd need at _least_ a detailed description of an animal he resembles –a ferret– or his favourite catch phrase –I am better than you– before you would even come close!" Harry smirked at the truthfulness of this statement.

"So, what's up with Malfoy?" he asked, wondering if he really wanted to know. "You tell him Ron; we can see how much you're dying to say it." True to his word, Ron was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. He took a deep breath and, looking smug, said "Malfoy's broke!"

"What!" Harry said in shock. "Well, not broke, but Bill says that ever since Malfoy's dad was arrested, Gringotts has put a limit on their account! He can't get expensive stuff now, so he's finally on the same level as us! I bet it's killing him; you know how he's always showing off." Ron couldn't stop grinning, and Harry felt a sudden surge of satisfaction in his chest, seeing Ron this happy; Harry could just imagine Malfoy sitting somewhere in his big mansion, complaining loudly to his mother about why he couldn't buy whatever ridiculously overpriced thing he wanted. _Finally, _Harry thought._ Malfoy's getting a taste of his own medicine. _

~~~~X~~~~

At lunch time a week later, Mrs Weasley had told them that they would all be going to Diagon Alley that afternoon, to pick up their Hogwarts supplies, except for Fred, George and Mr Weasley, who had all left for work shortly after breakfast. "But I expect we'll be seeing you soon Harry." Fred winked. "After all, if Weasley's Wizard Wheezes didn't get a visit from the 'Chosen One', people might think we weren't good enough for you." said George. "Shut it." Harry grumbled. "Oh yes, your most holiest chosen one! We must obey!" at this point, Harry threw his spoon at both Fred and George, before they apparated away in a swirl of purple robes.

Because they had at least three hours to kill, Harry, Ron and Ginny played a bit of Quidditch out in the back garden, with Harry playing chaser while Ron was keeper, and Hermione just watched, and every now and then would shout things to them as she read out their Hogwarts letters.

"Ron, you're going to need some new robes again! You to Harry!" She yelled. "Harry, have you sent off you class preference list yet? You'll need to if you're going to be dropping any classes this year!" "Not yet! Do it later!" Harry shouted back as he ducked Ginny as she zoomed towards him, trying to steal the Quaffle. "Ron?" "Yeah Hermione! Last week!" She seemed satisfied with this, so she sat down and continued to read the letter.

"Not including your elective class textbooks, this year we are required to purchase a copy of 'The Standard Book of Spells Grade 6' by Miranda Goshawk, 'Guide to Advanced Transfiguration' by Emeric Switch, 'Flesh-Eating Trees of the World' by Phyllida Spore, 'Deception for the Deceptive: an interactive guide to hiding ones identity (even from yourself)' by Sincere Ichtaca Faux–" "Ick tucker what!" Ron was so busy gaping at Hermione he didn't notice the Quaffle fly through his outstretched hands. He looked like he was doing the Mexican wave. "Ichtaca Faux!" Hermione replied back, unfazed by Ron's reaction. "Apparently, the author is an American expert in concealment, and is now touring Britain after the release of his new book!" she seemed rather excited about this for some reason. "Hermione, if I wanted to know about some famous prat who writes about how great he is, I would've sent a letter to Lockhart!" Ron bellowed as he rose higher, trying to do some complicated Quidditch move that didn't seem to be working.

"Hermione, what do you think Vatsky's going to be teaching us this year?" Harry asked as he landed beside her, seeing that the game was clearly over, considering Ron was hanging upside-down from his broom by his legs and going red in the face. "I'm not sure. But judging from the book list, it will be something to do disguising ourselves or things in our environment." Hermione concluded, sounding a little peeved that she couldn't come up with a definite answer. Harry thought about this. "Like how?" he asked, as Ginny flew to help Ron. "Well, we may me studying about Metamorphmagi or polyjuice potions, or maybe disillusionment charms…but apart from that, we will just have to see…" She shrugged. As she watched Ron finally fall off his Cleansweep Eleven, she whispered to Harry "So, what classes did you decide to take this year?"

Surprised by this, he said "What? Oh, right. I dropped history of magic, and astronomy," he took a breath, playing for time "and I'm staying in care of magical creatures and all the normal ones, like charms, Herbology, and–" "And divination?" she asked innocently. Harry frowned. "…I don't know…" Hermione eyed him closely "…you know how Trelawney always winds me up with the whole dying and destiny thing…" Hermione nodded, but prompted Harry to continue with her stare. "…and that thing with the tealeaves was just a fluke…" it sounded more like a question than a definite statement.

"And the dreams?" Hermione asked offhandedly, watching Ron swear loudly as he tripped over Ginny's broom. Harry opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again when he couldn't think of anything to say. If he was perfectly honest with himself, if he denied that they meant anything, and said that they were just normal dreams, or if he tried to convince Hermione that they were just the usual Voldemort visions, he knew either would just be a flat-out lie, and considering he had already assured her that they weren't of the standard delusionary variety, his argument wouldn't hold much weight anyway.

He sighed in defeat. "You want me to take divination, don't you?" "I would never dare suggest such a thing!" she said in mock insult, then winked. "I'm merely hinting at it." she whispered with a smirk. "Guys! A little help!" Ginny whined, as she tried to revive a semi-conscious Ron. "I think he's concussed." But this belief was quickly squished when Ron made a loud, fake snore, which Ginny promptly took as a signal to drop his head back on the ground. "Ow! Why do you keep hurting me?" Ron complained, much to Hermione and Harry's amusement.

~~~~X~~~~

It was time to go, so as instructed by Mrs Weasley, they each stepped one by one into the fireplace, floo powder in one hand and money bag and book list in the other. "Diagon alley!" was the last thing heard ringing throughout the burrow before they were whisked away in a blaze of green flames. That is, if you don't count Harry swearing when he remembered he hadn't taken his glasses off beforehand.

Crack!

_Dammit,_ Harry thought, as his vision became fuzzy then moment his face made contact with the floor of the Leek Cauldron and snapped his glasses in two. The fact he'd also forgotten to close his eyes while he span in the fireplace, resulting in a face full of soot, didn't help either. Stumbling to his feet, he picked up his ruined glasses, and tried and failed to get the room back into focus.

"Ron?"

"Over here harry!" Harry squinted at the far corner, and made out a collective blob of orange, that could only be the Weasley's. "Where's Hermione…?" he asked warily, once he made his way over to them. "She's over there." Ron said, also sounding cautious, pointing –Harry assumed– in the direction of the bar. "Harry, just get mum to fix them; you know Hermione won't fix your specs this time." Harry sighed "I know that, but she's the only one who can seem to get it right; the last time I tried to fix them myself, I kept falling over because they made the floor look like it was sinking in." Ron sniggered at this memory, but agreed. Helping him across the room in Hermione's direction, Ron muttered "Good luck, mate."

Harry took a shallow breath, then cleared his throat. "Um…Hermione?" there was silence. "…Harry…" she said icily. Harry waited. "I. told. You. To. Be. More. _Careful_!" she said fiercely, clearly ticked off. Harry gulped. "I-I know. But I–" "No excuses! Now, hand them over; I should have done this years ago!" Swallowing what he was about to say, Harry meekly held his glasses out to her. She snatched them from him and muttered something about "Ingrates", before Harry heard a swishing movement that sounded very complicated and a faint pop.

"Can I–" "Not yet!" she snapped. There was a cracking noise and Hermione murmured "Oculus Novo." Not exactly sure what that meant, Harry waited patiently and hoped silently, that whatever was coming wasn't going to result in him having to visit an optometrist…or a hospital.

"Here. Put these on." Hermione placed something small and round in his hand. Confused, Harry tried to work out what it was. After a few minutes, he gasped in realisation "Oh no! No! You are not making me wear contact lenses! I refuse!"

"Harry, there's no getting around it! Either you wear them, or you're going to be spending the rest of the year falling down the Grand staircase, or getting stuck in the trick step, because I'm sick and tired of you constantly breaking your glasses as if they grow on trees!" Harry glower at the small circles of plastic in his hand, despite the fact he couldn't see them, and moaned "But they'll be annoying, and they'll make me look like a ponce, Hermione!" there was a pause "Harry James Potter, if you don't put them on right now, I'm going to permanently attach them to your eyes with a permanent sticking charm." Hermione said slowly and threateningly.

Aghast at how low she was willing to go –and admittedly a bit frightened of her– he sighed. _Why me? _He thought dismally. Fidgeting a little, he looked back at the contacts. "Can I make one condition?" it couldn't hurt to ask. Hermione pause, deliberating, then sighed "What is it?"

Harry thought for a moment, then decided "Can I wear my glasses…fifty percent of the time?" "Ten." "Forty." "Fifteen." "Thirty five!" this was starting to get to Harry. "Twenty, and that's my final offer." Hermione said flatly.

Considering that Hermione was agreeing to this at all, Harry grimaced as he nodded in mute agreement. "Good. That means you should get a nice two and a half hours of glasses time a day." She said in mock sweetness. "What! Two and a half hours? I should be getting at least five!" "Don't you understand the meaning of twenty percent?" Hermione said scathingly. Harry spluttered "Yeah, it's just–" "–You expected it to be more." She finished for him. "If it helps, I was estimating twenty present of twelve hours, not a full twenty four." "Then how come–" "Are you really going to bother wearing your glasses while you're asleep?" she asked, as if she thought Harry was being stupid on purpose.

Because Harry didn't reply, Hermione continued "Alright then. In the mornings at breakfast, I'll give you your glasses, and you can choose how you wish to spend your time with them, and they'll be returned to me at night. But, just in case," Harry heard a distinct taping noise "I've put repelling charms on them, so that after your two and a half hours are up, you won't be able to put them back on." Harry stared dumbly at her "Why is it that you suddenly care so much about my ability to see?" he asked, feeling a bit bemused. "Let's just say I'm a firm believer in the saying 'waste not, want not'."

Giving up, reluctant though he was, Harry carefully slid the contacts into his eyes. He blinked; it was a little uncomfortable at first, but as his eyes adjusted, things began to come into focus and clear up. "See?" Hermione asked expectantly. And yes, he could see.

Staring at her –quiet rudely he was sure– he took in the details. "You've got some soot in your eyebrows." He said dumbly. At this Hermione's lips twitched, and from over her shoulder Harry could see that the few occupants that currently sat in the small bar, were all staring at him. "Well, um…how do I look…?" he asked, feeling stupid for even wondering. Hermione's stone façade cracked, and she smiled "Harry, you took exactly the same as you did five minutes ago; contacts are for seeing with, not for being seen."

Harry blinked some more; it felt bizarre how he could suddenly see out of the corner of his eye, and still be able to see what was in front, above or below him, this in mind, he looked down. "Is it just me, or are my feet always this big?" Hermione giggled. "Harry, your feet aren't big, it's just whenever you used to look at them before, your glasses would always slid down your nose and make them out of focus." Thinking this was a reasonable explanation, Harry said "Oh." and continued to stare at his feet.

Sensing that the danger had past, the rest of the Weasley's joined Harry and Hermione over at the bar, and began planning their day, all the while Harry examined every detail he could find about them that he may not have noticed in the past. He discovered that Mrs Weasley had a freckle just below her left eye, and Ginny's eyes, which he had previously assumed to be brown, had a slither of green in them, making them an interesting hazel colour, and Ron –who was looking at Harry as if he'd gone mad– had a small scar on his chin, like he'd cut himself shaving. "Um, harry…" Ron mumbled, "Will you stop looking at me like that; it's kind of freaking me out." Realising just how closely he had been staring at Ron's chin, Harry back up a bit as they walked out into the back alley behind the Leaky Cauldron.

"Right you lot. I want you all back here by four o'clock, ready to leave; I don't want anyone getting lost or _sidetracked_." at this, Mrs Weasley gave Ron stern look. "No Knockturn alley; the last I heard, there was a vampire hiding down there; apparently he had been pretending to be a muggle dentist near Charing Cross Road, and got caught biting one of his patients, very messy business. Oh, and no running off somewhere dangerous again; you can't go investigating strange–" "Mum!" Ron whined, "We're not stupid. Can't you at least trust us to walk down Diagon alley without something happening?" by the look on her face, no, no she couldn't.

Sighing, Mrs Weasley took out her wand, and tapped the wall in the appropriate places. "Well, come on everyone." And as the small group stepped through the grinding stones of the wall to the awaiting alley, they did not notice a pair of grey eyes watch them closely, as they stood in the threshold.


	3. Seeing with new eyes

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the content of J.K Rowling's books, but I do own all of my OC's, the plot of this fanfiction, some spells, some wizarding merchandise, Wax and Paper Dolls Ltd, and the possibility for random plot twists.

**Pairings: **HP/DM and HG/RW, maybe others later (who knows.) NO. Ginny/Harry. AT. ALL.

**Warnings (this chapter):** Harry being ooc (and maybe a bit of a douche to Draco), bad gramma and vomit. (don't ask.)

**A/N: **Greetings my ever patient readers! Another chapter is on the way, I promise! But as you have probably already figured out, I'm a slow writer, so please bear with me. I'm trying my hardest to write more quickly, but I don't have a beta writer and frankly I'm a bit OCD when It comes to my stories, so it takes me ages to edit them.

This chapter is a bit of a filler, but you get to see Draco for the first time, so I'm sure you'll forgive me. :)

Thanky thanky thankyou so much! To:

**KKMayfield – **for not only adding me to your Favourite stories and Author alert, but also commenting! (wow, I never thought anyone would do all that for me in one go…thanks!)

**Kaseytrue – **for adding this story to your favourites!

**Japhu** – for the Author Alert! (Just because you were the first to do so, I'll try and write another story so that you have something else to read.)

**Bookivore – **for yourwell thought comment.

**Gylbane () – ***blush* Really? Well don't worry, there is plenty more to come. Thanks to your comment I feel all smiley inside. :)

And to:

**thedemonwithin2, Ravenpuff, .ghostie, Discombobulatedperson, Kynnetic, ashBVB and RRW** for the Story alerts!

This is a songfic, so the theme song for this chapter is **"Freedom '90" by ****George Michael** (I feel a little embarrassed about this… but it was the only song I could think of that sorta fit…)

On with the story!

* * *

**Living in Tomorrow**

**Chapter 3**

**Seeing with new eyes**

From within the shadows, a pair of curious grey eyes watched a procession of four red heads and a tall, dark haired boy walk past the apothecary to join the throng of midmorning shoppers. At the sight of the boy, Draco Malfoy narrowed his eyes and an angry sneer spread across his face in recognition.

"Potter?" he whispered, almost spitting the words out of spite.

_It can't be…Potter wears those ugly glasses; he can't even see two inches in front of his nose without them. _ Malfoy thought, looking carefully at each of the group members in turn, studying their features.

_That's the weasel and weaslette, and there's their godforsaken mother, the stupid woman…_ His eyes widened in surprise when he spied Hermione's burgundy tresses.

_Is that Granger? I didn't take her as the rebellious type…I suppose she thinks she's all high and mighty now she's fought Death Eaters…yes; that must be Potter; he never goes anywhere without his good for nothing little friends…_

Malfoy frowned; Potter was laughing at something the weaslette had said, grinning and looking almost odd without his glasses to cover his unnaturally green eyes. At this, a bitter, repulsed feeling burned in his chest at the sight of them, all happy and without a care in the world.

_You don't deserve it Potter, _He thought sullenly, turning away to follow his mother into the dark interior of a crowded shop.

_None of you do…_

~~~~X~~~~

"Harry, stop looking at us like we've got maggots coming out of our noses." Hermione scolded, making Ginny chuckle as she poked Harry's face away from her for the third time.

"I thought with contacts you wouldn't have to get closer to things to see."

Harry flushed in embarrassment; he couldn't deny that his vision had improved, but it just felt so strange, that he couldn't help starring at, well, everything.

"I know, I know. I guess I just have to break them in a bit." Changing the subject, he smiled at Ginny.

"So, where are you going first?"

Ginny rolled her eyes at him, and said in a suffering voice "Mum wants to take me shopping for clothes and girl junk, though I have no idea why; I've already talked to her about how I don't like all that girly stuff, but she's determined for some reason. Maybe she thinks if she doesn't do something about it, I'll turn into some man hating feminist or something."

"Aren't you a man hating feminist, Ginny?" Ron asked in fake surprise. "I had no idea!"

His question was quickly answered when Ginny stuck her leg out and made him crash into an elderly witch who'd been passing by, but otherwise ignored him.

She gave a disparaging look at Harry, as if asking for help. "Any ideas?"

"What? About how to change her mind? Sorry Gin, but I don't think I'd succeed any better than you." Harry grinned; he could just imagine what Ginny was about to undergo at the hands of Mrs Weasley; she would be merciless. Pure torture.

Ginny sighed "Will you at least go with me?"

Harry gaped at her "Me? Go shopping? You must be joking?"

"Actually Harry…that might be a good idea…" Hermione said slyly, coming into the conversation.

Harry narrowed his eyes; he could tell when something was up, even if he didn't know what…yet. "And why exactly do you think so?"

"Oh, just thinking that, considering this year we have to donate all our old clothes to the school, and yours really are not the right size for you," she said innocently, an evil gleam in her eye, "we might get you some new ones."

Ginny nodded in agreement, catching on quickly. Harry swallowed, feeling apprehensive. "And…what exactly do you mean by 'get me some new ones'…?" he said slowly, playing for time. He didn't like the mischievous look the two young witches were giving him at all. Unfortunately, he found out what they meant, quiet soon.

~~~~X~~~~

"Where's Harry? I haven't seen him for a while." Ron asked, looking around as he, Hermione and Ginny stepped into Madam Malkin's an hour later.

"No idea." Ginny lied, smiling gleefully, as she pointedly looked away from Ron's worried face.

"Hermione?"

"Nope, haven't got a clue." Hermione seemed to be enjoying this. "Maybe he went with Molly to help her carry the shopping." she suggested, trying to suppress her giggles.

The truth was, ever since Harry's birthday party the previous week, Mrs Weasley and Hermione had been itching to dispose of all of Harry's baggy, faded, worn-out, second-hand clothing, and replace them. Merlin knew he needed it.

So, Harry's current location –however unwilling he was to be there– was a dressing room at the back of a neighbouring clothing store entitled 'Wax and Paper Dolls Ltd' with Mrs Weasley, sorting through a wide variety of wizard's robes and muggle style clothing Harry would never have dreamed existed.

"Harry dear, how about this one?"

"Um, no thanks Mrs Weasley…"

"Okay, this one?"

"No."

"What about this one? It matches your eyes."

"No!"

Harry tried his best to be polite, but most of the clothes she was handing him looked thirty or forty years out of date; one very memorable ensemble had been a fluoro green, open necked shirt, with the words 'I Like to Party' written in big bold letters across the chest, which he had rejected with a look of horror on his face the moment he laid eyes on it.

Later though, he found that Mrs Weasley really couldn't be held responsible for picking such a flamboyant shirt, because when Harry found the cupboard she had picked it up from, he saw that stuck to the back of one of the doors, there was a small sign reading:

_Gender distinguishable tops – Shirt slogans may only be read by owner and members of the same sex. _

After about three more clothing incidents with Mrs Weasley, all of which included some sort of oversight of the magical aspects of each piece of clothing – such as a pair of shoes that screamed at Harry until he put a fresh pair of socks on – Harry began to realise that Mrs Weasley had never set foot in a shop like this before that day.

He had began internally damning Hermione and Ginny to a life of pain and suffering the very moment he had managed to free himself from a pair of navy blue socks Mrs Weasley had gave him, that had tried to wax his legs. He had to say something.

"Um, Mrs Weasley, can I maybe choose something for myself?" Harry hastily asked. Looking a little surprised at him, but smiling nonetheless, Mrs Weasley agreed.

Harry had never been clothes shopping before –unless you counted the times when he'd bought his school robes at Madam Malkin's, and when he'd been to a big department store with aunt Petunia and been forced to carry everything, while Dudley ate ice cream and laugh at him– so this whole ordeal was quite new to him, and a little perplexing.

Granted, he could do with some new clothes. Wearing Dudley's oversized, unflattering clothing his entire life hadn't exactly allowed him to develop his own style, and considering that he had no other choice but to pick something – unless he wanted to end up going to Hogwarts with an empty trunk – he may as well pick something he liked.

Despite how small the shop was, it was crammed full of overcrowded shelves and cabinets that looked ready to burst open, stocked with every kind of garment you could ever think of; banana yellow robes trimmed in silk; tall witches hats that grew or shrunk to fit the wearers head; festoons of oddly patterned gloves hung from the ceiling; a pair of artfully ripped, maroon trousers that would've made Ron blush; quite a few odd objects that Harry had already had the misfortune of trying on, and countless T-shirts with different messages emblazed on each.

Looking at these, Harry considered, that most of them would have probably gotten him detention if he was ever seen wearing one, such as one he had found stuffed inside a barrel of contrasting items marked down for a galleon, that said:

_Eye of newt and toe of frog…screw the love potion, give us a snog._

Now and then, as Harry searched for something plain and remotely discrete that wouldn't try to strangle and/or greatly embarrass him, Mrs Weasley would make suggestions and small talk, like:

"Don't you think red would be too dull for the weekend?"

Or

"With all this rain we've been having, most of the shops have been selling winter clothing instead of the usual summer robes; it's a nightmare trying to find Arthur temperature regulating ones that don't feel like a furnace." Most of which he didn't pay much attention to, only nodding occasionally if he was asked his opinion.

Instead, Harry thought about what the others could be doing, like if Ron had been subjected to the same torture as himself, or if he was completely oblivious to the fact that his best mate had been kidnapped, and now and then he absently peering at the other occupants of the shop; there really was quite an obscure group of people present.

There was a well dressed dwarf, shovelling gold onto the counter as he placed a large order for over seventy tailored, beige and white tailcoats in varying sizes; an Indian sorceress levitating a stack of vibrantly coloured, spangled shawls into a dressing room; a monk dressed all in mauve, who was humming tunelessly while playing with a screaming yo-yo; and a pale, blonde boy, in a far corner, dressed all in black, who was holding up a light blue, muggle dress shirt with a look of uncertainty on his face.

Harry turned back to the shelves, about to answer Mrs Weasley's question about shirt sizes, when he did a double take.

"Malfoy?" Harry said loudly, making Malfoy jump and drop the shirt he'd been holding, to turn and snarl in Harry's direction.

"What do you want Potter?" he spat, loathing evident on his face. Taken aback at the intensity of Malfoy's glare, Harry couldn't think of what to say.

"Urm–"

"Well spit it out, or leave me alone; I have much better things to be doing than talking to you!" Beginning to get irritated, Harry remembered why he had bothered to announce his presence to Malfoy in the first place.

"What are you doing? Here, I mean." Harry thought it bizarre for Malfoy to even be in the shop; for one, the fact that most of these clothes tried to eat you would be irrelevant to Malfoy in comparison to the fact the owners were muggle born wizards, and for another, most of their selection was either of muggle design, or to be putting it lightly, quiet outlandish.

Malfoy seemed to realise this, and flushed slightly as he tried to compose himself.

"It is none of your business where I go Potter. Remember to keep that in mind, or you may find yourself without a nose the next time you decide to stick it in my affairs." Malfoy turned away, about to leave.

Harry glared; who did Malfoy think he was? So in a sarcastic voice, Harry said to no one in particular, "Hmm, it seems that the ponce wants to shop alone. Who knew that the git had a thing for muggle stuff?"

Malfoy twitched but did not turn around. Seeing this, Harry continued.

"Wonder what his father would say if he saw him now? Probably disown him here on the spot."

Now, Harry knew that was low, but oh how he hoped that one stung. And as expected, as soon as the words left his lips, Malfoy spun around to face Harry, his usual sneer nowhere in sight, to be replaced instead by an expression of incensed fury.

"Shut up Potter! How dare you even speak to me about my father!" he spat "You have no right!"

"Well, considering that he's a spineless coward, who got chucked in Azkaban because he works for a madman like Voldemort, I think I do have that right." Harry snapped back. He wasn't even sure why he was suddenly so ticked off. Malfoy hadn't even tried to get a rise out of him, yet Harry felt the moment Malfoy had spoken to him, he deserved a little ridicule somehow.

Malfoy flinched at the name, but didn't back down; continuing to snarl, he took a step closer. "He didn't deserve to go to Azkaban Potter!"

"Yes he did! All of them did and you know it! Voldemort gave them orders, and they followed them blindly! Heck I doubt a single one of them didn't enjoy it, trying to torture and kill everybody!"

Harry was seething now. At first he'd just wanted Malfoy to know what a prick he was, but now all Harry could think of was how much he hated him. Malfoy, his father, every stinking relative he had, because the way he saw it, Malfoy didn't give a rat's arse what had happened at the ministry last summer, or the fact that people were dying for no good reason, or that Sirius…

"Drop dead Potter! Do us all a favour!" Malfoy yelled, making the glass in the window begin to rattle.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Is my 'caring-what-happens-to-my-friends' cramping your style?" Harry bellowed back sarcastically, "Well, excuse me!"

Mrs Weasley and the other occupants of the shop looked a bit frightened, but didn't intervene; this would probably end badly with or without their help.

"Potter, do you have any idea what you're even saying?" Malfoy growled, looking at him as if to burn holes.

"You always think you're so big; the bloody hero, but you know what? You're not! All you are is some who needlessly comes to the so-called rescue, then tears people's lives apart, and then you say that whatever you've done is not your fault and for the greater good! And everyone is stupid enough to believe you!" And with that, Malfoy stormed from the store, leaving a stunned silence behind him.

~~~~X~~~~

Harry wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but for the rest of the hour that he spent in the shop, no one spoke. Mrs Weasley would just pick up things that she liked, and would show Harry wordlessly, and he would nod or shake his head depending if it looked dangerous or if he liked it or not. And by the time they left to meet the others, Harry realised what feeling had been nagging at the back his mind since Malfoy had left the shop; shame…

_Get a grip Harry. Why should you feel guilty? The stupid prat deserved that…_Harry thought stubbornly, as he stepped out onto the bustling road outside of Wax and Paper Dolls Ltd.

_And what was with all that 'tears people's lives apart' rubbish? Doesn't he get that if the death eaters didn't exist, then none of this would have happened? _Still scowling when they walked into Flourish and Blotts, Harry didn't notice at first that someone was calling his name.

"Harry! Harry!"

He looked up, and spotted someone waving madly at him from the counter with a big grin on his face. "Harry, it's me! Oh it's great to see you! Where are your glasses?" it was Colin Creevey.

Sighing heavily, harry smiled and walked over to him, silently hoping that if he did, Colin would stop making a scene. But it seemed it only made it worse.

"Wow! You look really different Harry! How was your holiday? Was it good? Bad? Did you just get contacts? Oh, but I guess in the wizarding world you'd just use some kind of charm thingy to fix your eyes, right?"

"Hello Colin." Harry greeted quietly, vaguely noticing that quite a few people where staring at them.

"In answer to your questions, Hermione has my glasses, yes I do look different, my holiday was fine, and yes, I got contacts." Harry reeled off as he looked around, trying to spot said Hermione and the others.

"Harry, guess what?"

"What?" Harry really wanted to get this over with; he really wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone at the moment since his fight with Malfoy, and he'd just spotted a mane of unnaturally red hair disappear into the divination section.

Looking back to Colin, Harry saw that the boy looked ecstatic as he whispered loudly, "You are now looking at the newest trainee photographer...for the Daily Profit!"

"Oh." Harry said, not sure how to react to this. "Oh, well, congratulations Colin." Colin beamed. Harry smiled back politely, but somehow felt a little undecided how he felt about this piece of news; with Colin working at the Daily profit, there was a slight chance that they might stop printing such derogative rubbish about him, though on the other hand, there was also the possibility that Colin would make things ten times worse.

For the next ten minutes, Harry smiled and nodded when needed, declined twice Colin's offer to make Harry his first client as a professional photographer, and was trying to convince Colin that he really needed to go find Ron and Hermione when, much to his relief, Ron came and rescued him.

"Harry, where have you been? Hermione wouldn't tell me anything! Oh, hi Colin. Good summer? Anyway, you won't believe what Hermione's been saying; she can't be serious about you taking divination can she?"

Letting Ron steer him away from a slightly taken aback Colin, Harry noticed that the younger boy had gone red, which Harry found ratter odd, but dismissed it. Walking into the shadow of a large stack of books entitled 'A History of Time', Ron said "So, what happened?"

Harry told him. He wasn't quite sure if he should tell Ron for some reason, but Ron's incredulous look was well worth it.

"They actually have shops like that in Diagon alley? And Malfoy was shopping there?" Ron asked, dumbstruck.

Harry nodded, chuckling. "I don't even think what I tried on was the worst of it. If they weren't having a clearout sale, I'm sure there would have been twice as many things that could have dismembered me."

"What are you on about?" Ron asked.

"Oh, well you know. They could have had fire breathing galoshes or something worse like–"

"Not that Harry. Don't you _know_ what kind place that is?"

"Uh...a clothing store?"

Ron frowned and sighed tiredly, and then said slowly, like he what he was saying was something obvious. "Think about it. Would any _normal_ wizard wear banana yellow robes?"

Harry raised an eyebrow; the way Ron was talking made it sound like they were discussing a conspiracy, and not in fact someone's odd sense in taste.

"Dumbledore might, now that I think about it." Harry mused.

Ron shook his head exasperatedly and continued. "No, what I meant is...well, what about the funny trousers and that stupid green shirt Mum tried to make you wear? What about them then?"

Harry thought about this. He didn't really know what Ron was getting at, but he was beginning to feel a bit awkward.

"Well, yeah, I admit not a lot of people would wear that sort of thing, but some of the other stuff was alright. What's the problem?"

But by now Ron had given up. "Oh, forget it. Anything else happen?"

"I had a fight with Malfoy." Harry said simply, as if it were nothing. And in his mind, it wasn't.

Ron seemed to agree, because he merely shrugged and said "Well, nothing new there. Hey, did he say anything about him losing his money? Though I expect the bloody git would want to keep quiet about that. Wouldn't want to tarnish his _reputation_." Ron wrinkled his nose with distaste at this, making Harry laugh.

"Not that he could ruin it any more than he already has right?" Harry said, trying to cheer Ron up.

"You know even if he does hush it up for now, he won't be able to once we get to Hogwarts; you know how the rumour mill goes out of control at the start of term."

Harry could remember some of the rumours that had spread through Hogwarts at the beginning of previous years, a considerable amount involving himself, and almost all of them being rather nasty, and the few that weren't, being incredibly inaccurate and to be frank, unappropriated.

"Yeah...yeah, you're right. Hmm..." Ron thought for a moment, and then a mischievous grin spread across his face. "And I have just the rumour to get the wheels turning."

~~~~X~~~~

Later on, after having found Hermione, bought their books, and left Ginny alone with Mrs Weasley to get his well deserved revenge on her, Harry and the others stopped by the magical menagerie and other small shops to pick up owl treats for Hedwig and Pigwidgeon, and vanishing cat litter for Crookshanks;

"Honestly Hermione, one of these days I'm going to strangle that cat! This morning I found him using my signed poster of Galvin Gudgeon as a litter box!"

Various other items that needed replacing;

"I swear Hermione; I didn't burn that big hole through your copy of 'Acclaimed Arithmetic Actuaries'! It must have been...when you travelled through the floo network–yeah that's it!"

Potion ingredients;

"Harry, why do you have to take potions this year? You hate Snape!"

And the equipment they needed for their separate elective classes.

Harry had just began examining a strange, golden disk engraved in dead languages he'd found on a shelf in the wizarding equipment shop, when something hit him hard on the back of the head, making him drop it.

"Ouch!" Wheeling around to see what had hit him, he saw a white-faced Ron, holding what looked like a muggle child's plastic-dart-gun, with a look of horror on his face.

"What is this thing...?" Ron asked weakly.

Trying hard not to laugh, Harry explained as he watched a still stunned Ron hold the fluoro orange toy at arm's length, while Hermione bought their supplies with a mixed look of disapproval and amusement.

Afterwards they stopped at the local café, meeting up with other fellow students along the way. Dean Thomas looked positively gleefully when Ron told him about the restriction on Malfoy's account, and then after they said their goodbyes and an hour before they had to leave, Harry, Ron and Hermione decided it was finally time they paid a visit Fred and George's shop.

~~~~X~~~~

"Wow." said Harry. The other two nodded silently as they stared at the shop window just five feet from them. Large, neon posters plastered the walls of the buildings nearest the shop and they read in bold purple lettering:

_WEASLEY'S WIZARD WHEEZES._

_Your one stop shop for everything mischievous, nonsensical, prank worthy, and just a little bit nutters._

_Life just that little bit boring?_

_Have something else that you could be doing?_

_Have a classroom that is just asking to have a portable swamp materialise in the middle of?_

_THEN STEP INSIDE MY FRIEND!_

_Don't wait, come with us, and when you leave, don't forget your complementary trick wand, and trout._

_There are no rules here, except one, and you must promise us this: kick the nearest Dark Lord on your way out._

The three looked nervously at the door to the shop and waited a few minutes until Hermione, tired of just standing there, opened the door.

"For the love of Merlins Y-fronts!" said Ron.

The shop was enormous. From the crowded little street, apart from the luridly coloured posters and bright window displays, the packed shop wasn't much to look at, but as soon as you stepped inside, your eyes and ears wanted to run for cover for all the strange sites and noises that filled the magically enlarged building.

If Harry had been asked to describe it all in one word, he would have said 'pandemonium'. And by the looks of it, it was exactly that that was for sale.

"Harry! Glad you could make it old chap!" Fred was pushing his way through one of the overly crowded corners of the shop while George climbed over a large stack of luminous boxes towards them.

"I see you're busy." Harry laughed as George feel over a box of extendable ears. Fred put on a face of smug pride.

"Oh no, this isn't busy!"

"No, quite quiet for a day if you ask me." said George casual, finally reaching them.

"I'd be afraid to see it on a normal day; it's mad in here!" Hermione commented, dodging a throng of customers that had just entered the shop. Harry's view fell on a group of teenage girls surrounding a number of displays that were all chatting animatedly. Harry nodded in agreement while trying to keep himself out of sight.

"Hey Fred, you wouldn't mind giving us a quick tour would you? It's just that Mum said we had to be back by four." said Ron, who was looking interestedly over at the group of girls in the far corner.

"No problem! Step this way good sir, lady and Ron–"

"Hey!"

"Hay is what horses eat. As Fred was saying, let's have a look shall we?" The twins ushered the small group over to the procession of displays and began explaining each as they passed.

_Mood Ink – shake once to change colour of ink to reflect your exact mood! Now with Interpretation colour wheel!_

"Isn't this like those mood rings muggles wear?" Ron asked.

Fred was just about to reply, when Hermione interrupted him.

"Mood rings don't actually work Ron. They're more of a temperature ring than anything else." She said. "Plus if you wear them too long they stain really bad." she sighed and put the bottle down.

"Hermione, this is Magic we're talking about! Of course a muggle ring isn't going to work! Bloody false advertising if you ask me." George pressed a bottle on her and Harry, shaking his head.

"You really need more faith in us wizard folk." Hermione raised an eyebrow and pointed to her hair, but the twins just grinned and continued on.

On the tall shelves there were more of the more familiar Weasley products, such as skiving snack boxes, Weasley fireworks and extendable ears, but there were also some new additions like:

_Fart stickers_ _– take your friends by surprise with our new range of touch activated sound stickers, now with re-record options_.

_Invisible pants –_"Got the idea after that time Lee vanished McGonagall's skirt. Oh, how she yelled at him. Priceless."

And

_Noticeability Shifters__–_"They're for those of us, unlike you Harry, who don't have invisibility cloaks." whispered Fred, picking up a small blue badge and fixing it to his robes. One moment you could see him, the next, your eyes went all fuzzy when you looked at him and your mind began to wander.

"Hey Fred, how much for three badges?" Ron asked excitedly.

"What? You planning some little outing that requires your body to be in three separate, invisible pieces Ron?"

"What? No."

"Well, if you must know, they're nine sickles each."

"Nine sickles! That's robbery that is!"

"Magic is money little brother. It took us a good six months to work out how to make them, so if you want one, pay up." Ron scowled, but didn't put his handful of little badges back.

Half way through the tour, Harry was just reaching for a bottle labelled 'Dream Tonic' when Hermione started reading aloud what looked to be a small, metal sign attached to the wall.

"'Kick a death eater when you're down, and we'll make sure You-Know-Who doesn't get the crown.'…Crown? What crown?" Hermione looked up, puzzled.

"Oh, those." said Fred. "They're motivational posters."

"What?"

"Well, me and George here where looking through these old muggle history books a few weeks back – you know for a laugh – and they said that back in…World War Two?" Fred looked over at his twin, who shrugged.

"Anyway, the muggle ministry put all these signs up sayin' stuff to try and keep the public calm or something, and we thought it was funny. So we designed these."

Hermione looked at the sign again, then back at the twins. "You mean the 'Keep calm and carry on' posters?"

They nodded. "Yep"

"But…" she frowned. "What does it mean by 'we'll make sure You-Know-Who doesn't get the crown'? It's not like the wizarding community has a monarch or anything."

"But of course we do." laughed the twins.

"Haven't you ever wondered why Britain has a Queen and a Minister?"

"But–"

"Are you saying that–?" Harry sounded stunned.

"That Queen Liz is a witch? No. But her family does seem to turn up a few now and then, so she is aware of us."

"Back in the times when witches and wizards couldn't be public because of the whole 'burnt at the stake' thing, her family was one of the biggest pureblood families around. It's just now that the bloodline is getting a bit thin, more squibs keep turning up." George shrugged. "Thought you knew, Hermione."

By the time four o'clock rolled around, the little group had only managed to look at half the shop, and when they left, each carried a bag of something with them, even Hermione.

"I just thought they looked interesting." she said, defending her purchase of a small book entitled 'Insta-Book: tap three times with your wand to change content to contain the book with which you desire.'

~~~~X~~~~

Harry's stay at the Weasleys over the next month seemed almost like a dream. For one, it seemed to be over much too soon for Harry's liking, and for another, so much seemed to have happened in such a short space of time.

Every morning when Harry got up he would look I the mirror and feel like he was looking at a stranger. The Weasley's mirror seemed to be having similar problems.

"Who are you? It would ask.

"I'm Harry!" he told it for the umpteenth time. "Harry Potter! The boy whose been using you every time I've come to visit since I was twelve!"

The mirror looked back at him blankly. In the end he gave up when his reflection walked off in a huff, it muttering about 'loud, confusing, green-eyed copies of itself.'

True to Hermione's word, Harry was only able to wear his glasses for a few hours at a time, and if he tried to leave them on any longer they would leap off his face as though jumping for freedom, and this fact seriously annoyed him.

"Maybe you should use a sticking charm." Ron suggested sympathetically.

"I tried." Harry said exasperatedly.

Ron frowned. "What went wrong?"

Harry sighed, lifting a few locks of hair that had been tucked behind his ears to reveal two angry red marks.

"That's the last time I use a sticking charm on any part of myself that's going to be painful when it gets ripped off."

There were normal things to do at the burrow as well; helping around the house, playing quidditch with Ron, the occasional order member stopping by with a quick hello and a few whispered words to Mr and Mrs Weasley, and even a trip into the local village to pick up some groceries and to get out of the house for a few hours.

Everything seemed so normal, Harry was beginning to get paranoid that something wasn't right. He was even starting to feel like someone was watching him, which was ridiculous because Ottery St. Catchpole had few wizards in the area and mainly consisted of muggles, none of which had probably ever heard of him. He placed it out of his mind.

Though, a week before they were set to leave for Hogwarts, one of the most startling events of Harry's stay arrived in the Sunday morning post, in the shape and size of a Witch Weekly magazine.

All the Weasleys, plus Harry and Hermione, had been sitting down to breakfast when Mrs Weasley came dashing from the kitchen window, a look of dazed fascination on her face, the magazine clutched in her hand.

When everyone asked her what was wrong she had looked uncertain as to whether she should divulge the information and kept blushing every time someone tried to persuade Molly to speak.

Finally unable to stand it much longer, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny sneaked out to the back garden and summoned the magazine out of the house.

"Now I don't think this is a good idea! We are not supposed to use major spells outside of school!"

"Oh lighten up Hermione. How else do you think we're going to get that thing away from her?" Ron said as they ducked around the garden shed.

"Mum will probably have it with her under lock and key, and you know we've already tried asking her about it." said Ginny.

"Yes I know, but still!"

"Hermione, if we wait much longer, whatever it is that's happened won't matter anymore because it will be over already!"

Hermione looked at Harry disdainfully; she was not happy, but after a few minutes of deliberation, she nodded reluctantly. Though, just to be on the safe side, they made Ron do the summoning charm, seeing as he was the oldest, had a reasonably clean recorded, and Hermione had refused point-blank to do it herself.

They waited. Then, from a window on the second floor, they could see the rolled up magazine come zooming towards them, scaring a couple of chickens as it fell on the ground in front of the chicken coop.

"Nice one brother." Ginny said, scrunching up her face as she picked up the mud splattered, glossy cover from a puddle.

"Shut up! I'm not the best at that spell alright."

They all crowded round and Ginny slowly unrolled the magazine, flipping through the articles and scanning them carefully. She flipped a few more pages and the whole group stopped dead and gaped down at the page.

Most of the articles they had seen had been reasonable benign, featuring fashion tips, recipes, and celebrity news, but this one was dedicated to a large, full-coloured photograph of someone's face, smiling shyly up at them, a bold heading splashed across the top.

"Blimey…" said Ron.

_Potter spotter – take a peek at the Boy Who Lived's new look_

_As of early August this year, it has come to the attention of Witch Weekly's chief editor, Tobias Manlethorpe, that the teenage legend, Harry Potter, age sixteen, has made some rather impressive changes in the past few weeks, as many members of the eligible young witching community will agree, I'm sure. _

_He's dropped the glasses, thrown the hand-me-downs and spiced up his wardrobe (courtesy of W&PD Ltd), and as far as we can see, he's on the market._

_Many of our readers have come to wonder why the young wizard hero suddenly decided to make this change, though as far as we can see, no one's complaining._

There were more pictures, each with a caption detailing features of Harry's appearance he had never known existed before; some of comments he was reseving were making him feel quite self-conscious.

One picture in particular was of Harry standing outside the muggle post office in the local village, the one he had been to only last week.

At the time he had been having that paranoid feeling again as he waited for Hermione to send a letter to her parents, and distinctly remembered feeling odd as he leaned against the red muggle post-box outside and again as they walked back to the burrow. At least he now knew why.

They kept reading in silence, Harry's face growing redder as the article slowly became more and more lewd the further they went down the page. When he received a comment from a middle-aged witch in Glastonbury, who stated quite unabashedly:

_"Don't those new trousers of 'is show off 'is wand nicely?"_ he finally couldn't take it anymore.

He stormed off back to the burrow, fuming, fully intending to burn every single pair of trousers he now owned. Unfortunately, for him at least, Hermione and Ginny stopped him before he could incinerate them all.

Later, Harry considered; he had been stupid in thinking that he would ever in his life have a normal day, let alone a normal month. The fates would have gotten bored with him a long time ago if they had ever allowed him that small mercy.

~~~~X~~~~

He was walking – no, floating – along a mountain path. The snow was falling thick and fast all around him and he could hear the wind howling. Where was he?

_Ah. This dream again._ Harry thought. He was beginning to get bored of having the same dream almost every night. _Oh well, nothing I can do about it._

Down in the valley below, Harry spotted the ominously swaying branches of a dark forest, dusted with snow; its trees looked as impenetrable as a steel fortress and more mountains could be seen in the distance.

_That's new…usually all I can see is the snow…is this still the same place as last time?_

Harry felt different; usually when he had this particular dream, he would feel the cold by now, hear the screaming. But no, he felt nothing. He heard nothing. But, he could see everything. And what he saw, was a shape.

A faint, silvery something was coming towards him, slowly, soundlessly, almost impossible to see against the snow. Harry tensed, preparing to defend himself, but then a sudden thought struck him.

_Is this that person I've kept seeing in my dreams? _Harry wondered.

_It can't be; this is different, it almost looks… _

But how it looked, Harry didn't have time to think about; the shape was getting closer, but it was just as faint as had been from a distance. Harry was just deciding that maybe he should run for it, when the thing finally came level with him; he had nowhere else to go.

It shimmered, silvery-grey and transparent as it looked at him.

It had a face.

"_Bertha."_ Harry said, as though in welcome, in a high, cold voice.

The ghost flinched at her name and looked away.

"_Look at me!"_ Harry said sharply.

The ghost turned back to Harry, a mixed look of disgust and fear on her face.

"_Now, isn't that better? What have you been doing up here, Bertha?"_ He asked in a falsely sweet tone.

"_Nothing." _She replied quickly.

"_Do not lie to me!"_ Harry spat. _"You were attempting to leave, weren't you?"_

"_No!" _The ghost of the woman said shrilly. _"No, I wasn't! I was just–"_

"_Silence!" _

Harry drew his wand, clasped between white, skeletally thin fingers, and pointed it at the ghostly figure before him.

"_Your body may no longer be present, but do not think that that means I cannot hurt you. Do not forget, _you_ belong to _me_."_

The ghost of Bertha Jorkins gulped and looked down at the wand.

"_I-I wanted to ex-explore to mountainside; it really is quite lovely out–"_

"_Why must you continue to lie your pitiful lies, you _filthy_ stain of this world!" _

Wand in hand, Lord Voldemort raised his arm and screamed _"__Anima commuro!__"_

The ghost of Bertha Jorkins screamed, appearing to chare at the edges, howling in agony as her celestial self solidified and cracked, writhing as though she were on fire.

"Submit!" Voldemort screamed over her ear-splitting shrieks. "Submit, and I may spare your pathetic existence!"

But she was too far gone by now to even speak; all that was left was a misshapen haze, vaguely human in appearance, whimpering as she hung midair, like some misbegotten cloud of ash.

"_You were warned; after all, I am merciful am I not, to possessions of mine?"_

Lord Voldemort flicked his wand lazily, casting up a fierce wind that violently blew around them and cast snow off of the tips of the trees. Bertha, or what was left of her, looked up piteously into the pitiless red eyes, and as the last gust of wind blew her ash away, she mouthed:

"_I was never yours…"_

Harry woke with a gasp. A cold, unwanted chill ran down his spine, making him gag. Coughing he stared at his hands in utter horror. Until a minute ago they had been long and white and…he shoved them back under the bedclothes, so he couldn't see them.

At the mere memory of the look on the ghosts face as she drifted away, Harry felt sick. Shivering and coughing, he keeled over the side of the bed, and was violently sick into the wastepaper basket.

By now, Harry could tell when a dream wasn't only a dream. And that had definitely been no dream.

* * *

**A/N:** Anyone want to make any guesses about Harry's dreams yet? If you make a good enough guess, you get a cookie.

**Next chapter:** Train to Hogwarts and some speculation...


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